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THE  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 


By  the  Same  Author 


ENGLAND  FOR  ALL 

THE  HISTORICAL  BASIS  OF  SOCIALISM 

COMMERCIAL    CRISES    OF    THE    NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY 

THE  BANKRUPTCY  OF  INDIA 

THE    RECORD    OF    AN    ADVENTUROUS 
LIFE 

FURTHER  REMINISCENCES 

THE  FUTURE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

THE  AWAKENING  OF  ASIA 

CLEMENCEAU  :      THE     MAN     AND     HIS 
TIME 

Etc. 


THE 

EVOLUTION    OF 
REVOLUTION 


BY 

H.  M.  HYNDMAN 


t 


BONI   AND   LIVERIGHT 

NEW   YORK  1921 


PRINTED   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN    BY  THK   RIVERSinE   PRESS   LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 


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en 
CD 


O 


-r  TO 

r. 

ll  MY    COMRADES    OF    THE 

I  OLD    SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC    FEDERATION 

"C 


THE    PIONEERS   OF   SCIENTIFIC    SOCIALISM 
IN    GREAT    BRITAIN 


t  1880-1911 


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C 


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PREFACE 

My  object  in  writing  this  book  is  to  give  a  sketch  of  economic 
influences  upon  the  growth  of  human  society.  At  a  time  when 
revolutionary  movements  are  going  on  all  over  the  civilised 
world  we  may  learn,  to  some  extent,  from  the  past  what  to 
avoid  in  the  present  and  the  future. 

My  obligations  to  the  works  of  Lewis  H.  Morgan  and  Karl 
Marx  are  manifest,  though  1  have  ventured  to  differ,  occasion- 
ally, from  those  great  writers.  In  dealing  with  the  downfall 
of  slavery  I  have  drawn  upon  the  admirable  Italian  school  of 
historic  economy  headed  by  Ciccotti  and  Salvioli. 

I  am  conscious  of  many  shortcomings  in  my  attempt  to 
survey  briefly  the  early  institutions  and  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  mankind.  But  I  hope  it  may  induce  younger  men 
than  myself  to  work  out  a  more  complete  study  of  this  great 
subject. 

The  title  was  suggested  to  me  by  my  friend,  Mr  Curtis  Brown. 


H.  M.  H. 


13  Well  Walk,  Hampstead. 
September  1920. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction         ...... 

SECTION  I 
THE  FIRST  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION 

CHAPTER 

I.  Primitive  Communism   . 
II.  Equality  within  the  Gens 

III.  The  Decay  of  the  Gentile  System 

IV.  The  Beginning  of  Private  Property 
V.   Labour  under  Communism 


PAGE 
11 


19 
28 
37 
44 
51 


SECTION  II 
THE  RISE  AND  FALL  OF  SLAVERY 
VI.  The  Early  Chattel  Slave  System 
VII.  Slavery  in  Greece 
VIII.  Slavery  under  Rome 
IX.  Slave  Revolts     . 
X.  Slavery  in  Decline  (1) 
XI.  Slavery  in  Decline  (2) 


55 
63 
13 
82 
96 
108 


SECTION  III 
EXCHANGE  AND  USURY 
XII.  Tlic  Rise  and  Power  of  Gold 

XIII.  The  Development  of  Usury 

SECTION  IV 
ECONOMIC  BACKWATERS 

XIV.  Peru       ..... 
XV.  China     ..... 

9 


116 
ISO 


141 

1.'36 


10  CONTENTS 

SECTION  V 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MODERN  SOCIAL  LIFE 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XVI.  Chaos     .......       170 

XVII.  Feudal  Origins  .  .  .  .  .  .178 

XVIII.  The  Jacquerie  and  the  Paris  Rising       .  .  .185 

XIX.  The  Peasants' War  in  England  .  .  .  .193 

XX.  The  German  Bauern  Krieg         ....        204 

SECTION  VI 
THE  TWO  GREAT  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTIONS 
•  XXI.  The  English  Bourgeois  Revolution      .  .  .213 

XXII.  The  French  Bourgeois  Revolution      .  .  .       223 

SECTION  VII 

THE  GROWTH  OF  CAPITALISM  AND  SOCIALISM 

XXIII.  The  Forerunners  of  Forty-eight  .             .             .       240 

XXIV.  Forty-eight  and  Seventy-one  -    .             .             .       248 
XXV.  The  Rise  of  English  Capitalism  .             .              .262 

XXVI.  Useless  Revolts  against  Capital  .  .  .272 

SECTION  VIII 

THE  PRESENT  TIME 

XXVII.  The  Limits  of  Historic  Determinism  .  .       284 

XXVIII.  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Chartist  Movement  .       295 

XXIX.  The  Period  of  Apathy  .  .  .  .309 

XXX.  Towards  a  Co-operative  Commonwealth  .  .       319 

XXXI.  "The  International"  .  .  .  .  .342 

XXX I L  The  League  of  Nations  .  .  .  .358 

XXXIII.  Bolshevism  and  the  Russian  Revolution  ,  .       367 

XXXIV.  Conclusion       ......       393 

Index  .......       401 


INTRODUCTION 

Careful  observers  agree  that  with  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  the  civilised  world 
entered  upon  another  revolutionary  period.  In  this,  as  in  other 
epochs  of  great  social  change,  there  is  nothing  really  sudden 
about  the  development.  Unnoted  modifications  in  the  economic 
order  of  things  have  been  going  on  steadily  all  the  time.  But 
now  these  have  become  cumulative  in  their  effect.  The  time 
is  nearly  ripe,  therefore,  for  giving  a  political  outlet  and  legal 
sanction  to  alterations  in  the  industrial  and  social  world — 
alterations  which  otherwise  may  compel  men  to  accomplish 
ignorantly  and  in  haste  what  ought  to  have  been  carried  out 
intelligently  and  at  leisure. 

A  revolution  is  none  the  less  a  revolution  because  its  aims 
have  been  achieved  peacefully ;  nor  does  the  bloodiest  up- 
heaval really  anticipate  or  even  greatly  hasten  the  growth 
of  events.  In  the  latter  case,  incapacity  above  and  justifiable 
impatience  below  seethe  until  an  outburst  takes  place.  But 
then  the  queer  psychology  of  himian  nature  has  its  word  to  say 
in  the  matter ;  and  though  the  crucial  and  necessary  reforms 
are  made,  the  people  concerned,  being  mentally  unprepared, 
allow  a  counter-stroke  of  reaction  to  take  place  which  hinders 
them  from  reaUsing  the  full  value  of  the  new  forms  then  indis- 
pensable to  social  progress.  Yet  all  that  the  ablest  and  most 
far-seeing  men  can  do  is  to  take  account,  without  prejudice,  of 
the  facts  around  them  and  to  make  ready,  in  concert  with  their 
fellows,  whose  minds  have  been  likewise  awakened,  for  the 
actual  transformation. 

There  are  thus  two  sides  to  every  great  change  in  the  conduct 
of  human  affairs.  First,  and  most  important  in  all  progressive 
societies,  is  the  economic  development  itself,  which,  up  to  the 
present  era,  has  been  for  the  most  part  unconscious,  so  far  as 
the  mass  of  the  people,  and  even  the  most  capable  brains  of  the 
time,  were  concerned.  Next  to  the  growth  of  the  economic 
forms  comes  the  mental  appreciation  of  them,  which  enables 
II 


12  INTRODUCTION 

the  comtnunity,  led  by  its  clearest  thinkers,  to  comprehend 
what  is  taking  place.  They  may  thus  capably  and  consciously 
guide  their  own  community  on  to  the  next  plane  of  social 
realisation,  as  gardeners  may  help  on  the  growth  of  a  plant, 
though  they  could  not  alone  cause  it  to  grow.  Such  psycho- 
logic influence,  reacting  consciously  upon  national  growth,  is 
practically  unattainable  until  mankind  has  reached  the  point 
in  civilisation  whence  it  can  survey  the  unconscious  gropings  of 
the  past,  and  the  more  intelligent  aspirations  of  the  present,  as 
one  great  inevitable  series  of  advances  in  the  course  of  human 
progress.  The  unconscious  is  thenceforward  controlled,  or  at 
least  intelligently  supervised,  by  the  conscious. 

Revolution,  in  its  complete  sense,  means  a  thorough  economic, 
social  and  political  change  in  any  great  human  community. 

There  can  be  no  revolution,  in  this  sense,  until  the  economic 
and  social  conditions  are  ripe  for  such  a  change. 

Therefore  to  speak  of  "  making "  a  revolution  is  absurd. 
No  man  and  no  body  of  men  can  make  a  revolution  ;  just  as  no 
man  and  no  body  of  men  can  check  a  revolution,  for  any  con- 
siderable time,  when  once  the  conditions  of  change  are  them- 
selves prepared.  This  means,  further,  that  the  use  of  force, 
however  justifiable,  does  not  originate,  and  may  not  even  hasten, 
revolution.  Economic  and  social  changes  are  not  brought 
about  in  that  way.  Force  may  have  helped  revolution  at 
exceptional  periods ;  it  has  never  created  revolution  at  any 
period. 

Yet,  unless  forms  of  government  or  means  of  expressing 
popular  opinion  have  been  so  modified  and  adapted  as  to  give 
a  pacific  and  legal  outlet  to  the  general  changes  demanded  by 
the  economic  and  social  situation,  then  forcible  endeavours  to 
establish  the  new  system  are  inevitable.  Nor  can  the  most 
relentless  application  of  force  on  the  other  side  do  more  than 
postpone  the  advance.  The  part  taken  by  force  in  revolution 
is,  therefore,  much  less  decisive  than  is  commonly  assumed. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  for  example,  that  the  most  crucial 
revolution  in  the  story  of  human  growth  produced,  in  the  earlier 
stages  at  any  rate,  no  forcible  revolt  against  the  complete 
alteration  that  was  being  unconsciously  made.  This  revolu- 
tion was  the  transformation  from  collective  or  communal 
property  held  by  a  portion  of  a  tribe,  or  gens,  by  the  tribe 


INTRODUCTION  18 

itself,  and  ultimately  by  a  confederation  of  tribes,  into  private 
property  held  by  the  individual  and  his  family.  This  enormous 
revolution,  accompanied  by  an  inevitable,  and  at  least  equally 
extraordinary,  modification  of  the  sexual  relations,  went  on  quite 
unconsciously  among  our  primitive  ancestors,  without  any  of 
the  bloodshed  and  upset  which  we  are  accustomed  to  associate, 
in  the  historical  period,  with  far  less  serious  social  and  economic 
modifications  of  an  existing  state  of  things.  We  can  observe 
similar  changes  going  on  slowly  at  present,  through  contact 
with  European  ideas  and  methods,  among  existing  tribes  at  the 
same  stage  of  savage  or  barbaric  development.  Yet  unless  the 
application  of  these  new  views  is  accompanied  by  manifest 
injustice  and  cruelty,  they  are  quietly  accepted  by  the  native 
tribes,  who,  reluctant  as  they  may  be,  accommodate  themselves 
by  degrees  to  the  foreign  forms,  introduced  in  the  first  instance 
by  exchange,  and  become  accustomed  to  this  overturn  of  all 
their  original  conceptions  and  habits  of  life. 

The  direst  poverty,  the  grossest  injustice,  the  most  revolting 
brutality  do  not,  of  themselves,  engender  revolution.  They 
have  very  frequently  occasioned  widespread  revolts  of  an  alarm- 
ing kind,  accompanied  by  hideous  atrocities,  on  the  side  of  the 
oppressed  as  well  as  of  the  oppressors.  But  the  social  system 
of  class  servitude  itself,  however  horrible  it  may  be  in  many  of 
its  details,  is  not  overthrown  by  such  upheavals  from  below  so 
long  as  it  is  adapted  to  the  general  economic  needs  of  the  period. 
Fear  of  the  recurrence  of  disorders  may  produce  a  change  for 
the  better,  but  these  improvements  are  superficial  and  do  not 
affect  the  main  social  structure.  A  reign  of  terror,  or  an  orgy 
of  atrocity,  by  a  dominated  majority,  allows  the  former  sufferers 
to  avenge  past  wrongs ;  it  does  not  produce  those  conditions 
which  will  prevent  the  commission  of  similar  wrongs  in  the 
future — ^unless  unseen  circiunstances  working  below  have 
already  had  this  effect. 

These  considerations  apply  to  societies  which  are  not  exposed 
to  invasion,  or  to  continuous  pressure  from  without.  When  one 
community  of  greater  power,  whether  civilised  or  barbarous, 
attacks,  or  even  impinges  upon  another,  revolution,  or  reaction 
in  a  revolutionary  form,  may  easily  follow,  irrespective  of  the 
internal  conditions  of  the  country  which  has  such  a  power  for 
its  neighbour.    Here  the  influence  of  one  human  group  may 


14  INTRODUCTION 

arrest  or  accelerate  the  development  of  another,  so  far  as  to 
divert  its  natural  progress  into  a  totally  different  channel 
from  that  which  it  would  have  followed  had  there  been  no 
interference  from  without. 

This  applies  not  only  to  the  course  of  material  but  of 
religious  development.  And  in  these  cases  force  may,^and  does, 
have  a  great  and  sometimes  a  long-enduring  effect.  But  such 
instances  of  the  changes  wrought  by  the  contact  of  tribes,  or 
nations,  at  different  stages  of  social  growth,  are  not  usually 
regarded  as  revolutions,  tremendous  though  their  effects  on 
the  history  of  mankind  have  been.  They  are  taken  as  a  matter 
of  course.  So  little  was  the  current  of  economic  evolution  and 
its  consequences  understood,  until  recently,  even  by  men  of 
wide  knowledge  in  other  departments,  that  they  have  assumed 
that  invasions  and  conquests  by  tribes  only  just  emerging  from 
barbarism,  but  possessed  of  fine  physique  and  great  fighting 
capacity,  were  in  some  instances  advantageous  to  general  pro- 
gress. This  idea  has  now  been  dispelled.  Domination  of  a 
higher  form  of  society  by  a  lower  has  invariably  spelt  arrested 
development,  or  positive  retrogression,  for  the  conquered  races, 
even  where  these  the  more  civilised  peoples  had  apparently 
reached  a  period  of  decay.  The  superior  vigour  and  fighting 
power  of  the  victors  did  not  make  amends  for  their  inferior 
culture.  Nor  did  the  slack  tide  of  development  begin  to  flow 
again  until  the  invaders  had  been  absorbed  or  enlightened  by 
the  civilisation  which  they  had  apparently  overwhelmed.  This, 
we  can  now  see,  has  been  the  invariable  rule. 

Nor  does  the  overthrow  of  a  people  at  a  lower  stage  of  de- 
velopment by  one  which  has  attained  to  a  higher  level  produce 
a  permanent  revolution  in  the  social  sense.  It  is,  indeed, 
doubtful  whether  any  such  conquests,  revolutionary  as  they 
seemed  at  the  time,  have  left  an  enduring  mark  on  the  subju- 
gated races.  The  improvements  introduced  under  such  circum- 
stances are  merely  superficial :  after  generations,  perhaps 
centuries,  passed  under  peaceful  rule  from  without,  the  native 
population  has  taken  up  its  tale  of  social  history  from,  or  near, 
the  point  at  which  it  had  arrived  when  conquered.  In  not  a 
few  instances  the  so-called  inferior  race  has  slowly  absorbed  the 
superior. 
The  greater  the  difference  between  the  stages  of  civilisation 


INTRODUCTION  15 

reached  by  the  two  races  occupying  the  same  territory  the  less 
influence  has  the  one  on  the  social  development  of  the  other. 
It  is  very  doubtful  whether  conquest,  except  of  like  by  like,  has 
aided  human  progress  as  a  whole.  Even  in  that  case  the 
psychologic  element  steps  in,  apart  from  economic  advantages 
or  drawbacks,  and  incites  the  repressed  people  to  demand  the 
right  of  free  expansion.  Thus  even  national  and  social  revolu- 
tion from  without  is  rarely,  or  never,  permanent  in  its  effect, 
except  in  cases  where  the  higher  civilisation,  with  its  apphances, 
tools  and  culture,  is  voluntarily  adopted  by  adjacent  peoples, 
who  themselves  adjust  the  new  methods  to  their  own  social 
forms.  Where  this  is  done,  under  the  present  conditions  of 
improved  intercoiu-se  and  the  rapidly  augmented  powers  of 
man  over  nature,  the  increased  rapidity  of  the  social  develop- 
ment amounts  to  a  revolution  of  the  most  surprising  character ; 
stages  of  growth  which,  under  the  old  conditions,  had  required 
centuries  to  traverse,  being  actually  covered  in  decades. 

Whether  the  economic  and  social  advance  is  necessarily 
accompanied  by  an  equal  psychologic  and  intellectual  change 
is  not  easy  to  determine.  As  a  rule,  and  in  spite  of  all  theoris- 
ing, it  takes  a  very  long  time  for  material  changes  to  transform 
the  modes  of  thought  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, and  to  shake  the  religious  observances  which  accompany 
diversified  behefs  in  the  supernatural.  The  strange  pheno- 
menon may  even  be  observed  of  a  people  consciously  and  cap- 
ably availing  themselves  of  the  most  recent  discoveries  of  science 
and  their  most  modem  applications  to  the  work  of  everyday 
life,  yet  remaining  wholly  immersed  in  their  old-world  super- 
stitions, devoted  to  the  most  incredible  deifications  of  real  or 
imaginary  objects,  or  to]^the  age-old  ancestor  worship  of  their 
forbears. 

There  are  those  who  contend  that  social  revolutions  are 
exclusively  due  to  material  causes,  and  that  the  tremendous 
effects  which,  at  various  periods,  they  have  unquestionably  pro- 
duced upon  the  world  can  be  traced,  in  every  instance,  to  the 
underlying  economic  forms  of  the  time  when  they  arose.  This 
school  reduces  all  human  action  to  direct  or  secondary  material 
causes,  putting  aside  instinct  and  psychology  as  unworthy  of 
recognition.  But  it  will  be  found  on  examination  that  this 
simple  monism,  so  attractive  to  some  minds,  will  not  bear  the 


L 


16  INTRODUCTION 

test  of  analysis.  Time  aft  er  time  in  the  record  of  human  growth 
we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  vast  movements  which  cannot 
by  any  possibihty  be  explained  by  the  influence  of  purely 
economic  causes  in  the  present  or  the  past.  As  a  result  of  such 
investigation  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  although 
man  in  society  is  unquestionably  the  outcome  of  material 
circumstances,  nevertheless  there  are  two  currents,  not  merely 
one,  to  be  observed  at  work  throughout  this  social  develop- 
ment. Of  these  the  economic,  as  already  said,  is  much  the 
more  important  and  the  more  continuous.  But  there  is  also 
the  psychologic  current  accompanying  the  course  of  society  as  a 
whole,  which,  generally  much  less  powerful,  at  intervals  gains 
the  mastery  and  carries  all  before  it  for  the  time  being,  while 
the  economic  element  continues,  but  takes  a  subordinate  place. 

Even  in  social  revolution,  the  only  really  permanent  revolu- 
tion, this  becomes  apparent  when  men  exalt  their  ideals  into  a 
psychologic  fetish.  That  is  to  say,  when  there  is  no  immediate 
or  proximate  material  cause  which  will  satisfactorily  account 
for  the  phenomena  observed.  Yet  it  is  questionable  whether, 
throughout  the  world's  history,  revolutions  or  revolts  due  to 
economic  causes,  and  admitted  to  be  so,  have  ever  stirred  men 
on  the  one  hand  to  the  performance  of  greater  acts  of  heroism 
and  self-sacrifice,  or  on  the  other  to  the  perpetration  of  more 
frightful  massacres  and  atrocities  than  the  religious  creeds  and 
religious  movements  which  cannot  be  traced  to  the  desire  of 
collective  material  advantage,  or  the  hope  of  personal  gain.  In 
fact,  so  great  a  need  do  human  beings  appear  to  have  of  a 
psychologic,  over  and  above  a  material  or  social  motive,  that 
•at  periods  of  violent  effort  their  objects,  however  material  in 
reality,  are  clothed  with  some  idealistic  glamour  in  the  shape 
of  abstractions  divorced  almost  wholly  from  reality. 

In  the  time  just  before  a  long-prepared  social  revolution,! 
meeting  with  resistance,  breaks  out  into  violence,  it  is  possible 
to  foresee  the  Une  it  will  take  and  the  changes  to  which  it  willj 
give  a  political,  and  eventually  a  legal  outlet. 

Although  religious  upheavals  and  revolutions  cannot  be  over- 1 
looked  in  any  survey  of  the  history  of  humanity,  they  consti-J 
tute  a  relatively  unimportant  portion  of  the  record  of   socialj 
antagonisms,  when  compared  with  the  class  struggles  or  class 
wars  which  have  gone  on  since  the  dawn  of  civilisation.     These 


INTRODUCTION  17 

may  be  observed  in  every  cormnunity,  from  the  time  when  the 
institution  of  private  property,  in  land  as  well  as  in  personal 
objects,  the  spread  of  slavery,  the  accmimlation  of  riches  in 
a  few  hands,  with  the  disintegrating  influence  of  money  and 
exchange,  created  antagonistic  classes,  arising  out  of  strongly 
divergent  economic  and  social  interests.  For  long  periods 
these  dissensions  were  kept  down  in  many  regions,  where,  for 
some  untraced  reason,  the  same  forms  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution, with  their  attendant  slavery,  remained  unchanged 
under  an  enlightened  or  a  theocratic  despotism,  where  a  system 
of  caste  has  been  stereotyped  for  generations,  or  where  bar- 
barian conquerors  have  long  crushed  out  the  growth  and  initia- 
tive of  a  superior  culture.  Examples  of  this  arrested  develop- 
ment, when  a  certain  stage  of  civihsation  has  been  reached,  are 
numerous,  especially  in  Asia ;  but,  sooner  or  later,  either  from 
internal  causes  or  from  outside  interference,  the  class  struggle 
is  renewed,  and,  in  the  old  shape  or  the  new,  gives  rise  to  peaceful 
or  forcible  revolution. 

In  free  communities,  and  in  Western  Europe  generally,  this 
class  conflict  has,  however,  been  continuous.  It  has  pervaded 
every  society  in  succession  from  the  break-up  of  the  gentile 
and  communal  order.  During  the  whole  of  the  slave  period 
and  the  social  forms  that  arose  from  its  decay,  the  class  war 
between  the  diverse  sections,  from  the  patricians  down  to  the 
chattel  slaves  themselves,  from  the  feudal  nobles  and  their 
higher  retainers  down  to  the  serfs,  from  the  landowners  and 
capitalists  down  to  the  wage-earners,  has  continued  to  our  own 
day.  Gradually  simplifying  itself,  as  the  intermediate  social 
orders  have  forced  from  the  dominant  class  of  their  day  recog- 
nition and  full  rights  for  their  section,  this  latent  but  persistent 
antagonism  has  now  resolved  itself  into  one  final  struggle. 
This  steady  friction  of  economic  and  social  conflict,  whose 
existence  has  always  been  denied  by  the  classes  in  control, 
going  on  often  under  the  appearance  of  social  balance  and 
organised  harmony,  has  given  rise  to  interminable  trials  of 
strength  between  groups  and  individuals  and  has  been  the 
motive  power  of  social  progress.  This  truth  is  no  longer  con- 
tested. The  class  antagonisms  which  took  the  shape  of  personal 
relations  and  personal  differences  have  slowly  faded  into 
pecuniary  relations  and  pecimiary  differences.     These  are  now 


18  INTRODUCTION 

supreme  ;  so  much  so  that  the  fetishism  of  money  pervades  the 
whole  of  civiUsed  Hfe :  the  creation  and  distribution  of  wealth 
are  regarded  almost  entirely  through  this  distorting  medium. 
The  many-coloured  faction  fights  of  the  past  have  been  trans- 
formed into  the  grim  and  sordid  cash  antagonisms  of  the 
present.  But  the  greatest  revolution  of  all  time  has  begun. 
The  age-long  differentiation  of  the  old  communal  forms  by 
private  property  is  being  reintegrated  and  unified  under  our 
eyes  :  we  are  arriving  at  the  co-operative  and  communal  forms 
of  the  old  gentile  period  on  an  almost  infinitely  higher  plane. 


CHAPTER  I 

PRIMITIVE  COMMUNISM 

All  authorities  are  agreed  that,  throughout  the  earlier  develop- 
ment of  mankind,  communism,  without  any  private  property 
whatever  in  the  means  of  creating  wealth,  prevailed  as  the 
economic  and  social  order.  This  can  be  traced  from  the  nomadic 
hordes  and  "  classes  "  of  the  Australian  aborigines,  the  rude 
"  bushmen  "  of  Africa,  the  semi-animal  tribes  of  Patagonia, 
through  all  the  improving  forms  of  savage  life  and  barbarism, 
up  to  the  first  glimmerings  of  civilisation.  Very  small  and  in- 
efficient as  were  the  tools  and  instruments  and  methods  at  the 
disposal  of  these  simple  tribes  for  the  creation  of  wealth,  they 
were  handled  by  each  and  all  for  the  common  good.  Private 
ownership,  in  any  shape  which  gave  its  possessor  economic  or 
social  power  over  his  fellows,  was  unknown.  Food  and  other 
needs  for  human  life  were  shared  among  the  members  of  the 
tribe  according  to  the  wants  of  the  individuals  of  the  small 
community. 

Nature  necessarily  appeared  to  our  remote  ancestors,  types 
of  whom  still  survive  for  our  inspection,  and  too  often  as  play- 
things for  our  cruelty,  wholly  unintelligible  and  quite  incapable 
of  control  by  themselves.  Yet  they  were  able  to  obtain  and 
use,  under  primitive,  and  of  course  still  more  under  later, 
communism,  natural  products  for  the  common  advantage  both 
from  land  and  from  water.  Social  production,  or,  in  the 
earlier  days,  the  procuring  of  what  was  wanted  for  the  use 
of  the  tribe,  and  communal  distribution  among  the  tribal  men, 
women  and  children  of  the  group  were  the  rule.  Should 
scarcity  result  from  difficulty  in  finding  provender,  or  from 
any  social  mischance  or  natural  upset,  and  one  member  conse- 
quently suffered,  then  all  other  members  were  similarly  under- 
going privation.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  plenty,  each 
and  all  had  their  share  to  the  full  extent  of  their  needs. 

It  was  not  an  ideal  society,  that  of  our  most  ancient  forbears, 

19 


20  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

assuredly.  Cannibalism,  for  example,  revolting  as  it  is  to  us, 
was  nevertheless  an  advance  upon  the  haphazard  mode  of 
existence  that  preceded.  Flesh  was  needed  and  man  ate  man. 
The  great  invention  or  discovery  of  fire,  and  therefore  of  cookery, 
accompanied  or  anticipated  the  man-eating  period,  and  the 
desire  to  obtain  human  food  for  the  tribal  larder  became  one  of 
the  causes  of  war  between  contiguous  tribes.  But  the  supplies 
of  food  thus  obtained,  like  the  rest,  whether  killed  and  eaten  at 
once,  or  kept  alive  as  a  reserve  of  meat  to  be  used  when  required, 
were  equally  common  stores  devoured  by  the  members  of  the 
tribe  at  great  feasts.  The  horror  of  anthropophagy  in  nowise 
changed  the  communal  character  of  the  general  consumption ; 
nor,  at  that  stage,  does  humanity  see  anything  other  than  what 
is  natural  in  applying  to  men  the  same  rules  of  dismemberment 
and  absorption  which  we  now  exercise  in  regard  to  oxen,  sheep, 
or  pigs,  which  were  not  then  available. 

Members  of  another  horde  or  tribe  were  considered  fair  game. 
It  was  wholly  moral  to  divide  up  and  eat  the  bodies  of  dead 
or  living  enemies.  This  lust  after  flesh,  gratified  in  such  a 
manner,  was,  in  fact,  part  of  the  social  arrangement,  and  it 
naturally  prejudices  us  against  the  whole  period  when  our 
forbears  regarded  one  another,  if  born  into  a  hostile  tribe,  as 
specially  created  for  the  subsistence  of  the  conquerors  in  battle. 
So  does  the  custom  of  burying  alive  the  aged,  still  practised  in 
some  regions,  and  the  destruction  of  female  children,  which 
likewise  obtains  even  among  peoples  who  have  arrived  at  a 
stage  much  nearer  to  civilisation. 

As  society  progressed,  first  sea  and  river  fishery,  and  later, 
in  the  course  of  countless  centuries,  cultivation  of  the  soil  for 
cereals,  gave  increasing  sources  of  supply.  Thus  men's  means 
of  subsistence  gradually  became  less  uncertain,  and  the  habita- 
tions of  the  human  race  spread  all  over  the  globe.  But  every- 
where, as  is  now  clearly  established,  the  same  or  similar  forms 
of  communal  life  prevailed,  modified  only  by  climate  and  the 
natural  surroundings  to  which  the  little  groups  had  to  adapt 
themselves.  All  the  great  combinations  of  mankind,  therefore, 
of  which  we  ourselves  form  part,  and  others  which  we  see  around 
us  to-day,  grew  up  out  of  these  tribal  institutions  that  had 
everything  in  common.  Their  unconscious  and  infinitely  slow 
progress  made  way   through  the  ages   on   every   continent. 


% 


PRIMITIVE  COMMUNISM  21 

There  is  notliing  to  show  us  that  any  portion  of  the  human  race 
failed  to  pass  tlirough  tliis  communal  stage.  On  the  contrary, 
all  the  evidence  attainable  proves  that  there  was  no  exception 
to  this  rule. 

A  more  conservative  system  of  social  life  than  commmiism 
can  scarcely  be  imagined.  It  calls  for  a  strong  effort  of  the 
unagination  to  conceive  how  even  the  earUer  conmiunism  of  the 
horde  developed  into  the  later  and  better  supphed  communism 
of  the  gens,  tribe  and  combination  of  tribes.  But  how,  when 
once  estabhshed,  this  later  communism  could  have  been  broken 
up  at  all  is  still  more  difficult  to  miderstand.  Almost  every 
instinct  and  reason  which  could  influence  himian  beings  ap- 
peared to  favour  the  permanence  of  the  existing  social  state, 
when  once  a  certain  level  of  assured  well-being  had  been 
reached.  The  necessary  work  of  the  whole  body,  when  the 
merely  nomadic  period  had  passed,  was  performed  by  the  men 
and  women  within  the  group  as  arranged  by  custom  based  upon 
mutual  agreement,  and  all  shared  in  the  joint  produce  obtained 
by  the  associated  labour  of  the  whole  of  the  members  of  the 
group. 

In  the  lower  forms  of  such  a  communism,  before  fisheries, 
agriculture  and  small  handicraft  had  come  witliin  the  scope  of 
tribal  work,  life  was  hard  and  sustenance  precarious  for  both 
sexes.  Since  also  the  women  performed  the  whole,  or  nearly 
the  whole,  of  the  home  duties,  alike  among  the  roving  tribes  of 
hmiters  for  subsistence  and  the  more  settled  savages  with  a 
local,  if  temporary,  habitat,  they  are  assumed  to  have  done 
far  more  than  their  share  of  the  communal  toil  and  to  have 
been,  tliroughout  the  earlier  periods,  httle  better  than  ill-used 
slaves  to  the  men.  But  if  we  consider  the  relative  share 
of  the  common  hardships  and  the  exceptional  risks  and  long 
days  of  semi-starvation  imdertaken  by  the  males  of  the  tribe, 
especially  in  the  time  of  shifting  habitation  and  dependence 
upon  the  provision  of  food  by  the  chase,  we  shall  see  that  no 
real  inequahty  of  sacrifice  nor  undue  and  cruel  burdens  were 
imposed  upon  the  women. 

The  conmiunal  form  of  production  and  distribution,  where 
each  and  all  contributed  of  their  joint  toil  for  the  general  good, 
and  consmned,  in  accordance  with  what  they  needed,  from  this 
conmion  stock,  appears,  therefore,  to  have  been  an  inevitable 


22  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

stage    of   human   society  which  no  race   of  mankind  could 
avoid. 

Among  such  splendid  physical  specimens  of  humanity  as  the 
North  American  Indians,  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand,  many  of 
the  island  tribes  of  Polynesia,  the  Zulus  and  Masai  of  Africa, 
the  early  Scandinavians  and  Germans,  the  Greek  and  Roman 
gentes,  the  powerful  Turanian  and  Semitic  tribes  of  Asia,  as 
well  as  among  the  physically  inferior  peoples  still  to  be  found 
in  the  interiors  of  great  continents  and  great  islands,  communal 
life  was  the  only  life  which  they  could  understand  and  carry  on. 
It  was  the  same  among  peoples  such  as  the  Peruvians,  the 
village  Indians  and  the  Chinese,  as  among  the  most  warlike, 
the  Aztecs,  the  Semites  and  the  Turcoman  hordes. 

Under  these  conditions  of  natural  production  for  the  social 
and  personal  use  of  each  and  all,  and  equitable  sharing  of  the 
results  of  the  general  toil,  there  were  no  economic  or  social 
antagonisms  whatever  within  the  groups  themselves.  The 
interest  of  each  individual  merged  itself,  unconsciously  but 
harmoniously,  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  gens  or  tribe,  and 
the  general  interest  accepted  by  immemorial  custom  and  tribal 
hereditary  instinct.  As  the  interest  of  the  entire  group  was 
likewise  the  personal  object  of  every  individual  of  the  group, 
it  was  impossible  to  separate  the  one  from  the  other.  The 
whole  society  hung  together,  and  every  expression  of  its  exist- 
ence and  attitude,  towards  itself  and  external  objects,  was 
collective  and  social,  not  individual  and  anarchical.  The 
children  of  the  several  parents  were  the  children  of  the  tribe, 
and  were  regarded  as  its  most  important  possession.  Indiffer- 
ence to  the  general  well-being  of  the  youth  of  a  gens  or  tribe 
was  inconceivable,  even  among  groups  which  practised  female 
infanticide  shortly  after  birth.  Death  was  a  trifling  matter ; 
deterioration  was  treachery  to  the  tribe.  Such  wholesale 
neglect  and  degradation  of  child  life  as  is  conmion  in  great 
civilised  cities  could  not  be  possible  in  a  savage  community : 
the  reason  for  this  appalling  contrast  being  that  in  the  one  case 
himian  sohdarity  is  a  material  ethical  rehgion  affecting  and  con- 
troUing  all  the  members  of  the  small  but  closely  knit  society ; 
in  the  other  case  there  is  no  such  feeling  of  joint  and  several 
responsibility  for  all  and  especially  for  children.  Hence  ill-fed, 
ill-clothed,  ill-nurtured  infants  are  left  to  the  chance  care  of 


PRIMITIVE  COMMUNISM  23 

poverty-stricken  mothers,  or  the  still  more  precarious  tutelage 
of  a  degrading  charity. 

Ordered  communism  among  savages :  anarchical  individual- 
ism among  civilised  peoples.     That  is  the  rule. 

Thus  each  group  or  combination  of  gentes  in  the  tribe,  or 
later  in  the  federation  of  tribes,  sufficed  for  itself,  and  acted  as  a 
common  brotherhood,  whose  social,  sexual  and  economic  arrange- 
ments for  the  communal  existence  were  all  on  one  plane.  The 
powers  of  production  were  necessarily  very  small,  to  our  notions. 
But  these  powers  were  under  the  complete  control  of  those  who 
jointly  owned  and  applied  them.  There  was,  and  there  could 
be,  no  antagonism  between  man  and  machinery,  or  between  one 
class  and  another  class,  for  classes  in  oxir  sense  did  not  exist 
during  the  real  communal  period.  Within  the  gens  and  tribe 
peace  and  good-wiU  permanently  reigned  so  long  as  communal 
equality  prevailed ;  though  when  the  chief,  or  war  lord,  developed 
into  the  irresponsible  autocrat,  and  priests  obtained  influence, 
horrible  excesses  were  committed  within  the  tribes  themselves, 
even  while  communism  in  distribution  still  existed,  and  before 
any  accimiulation  of  wealth  in  private  hands  had  become 
possible.  Comparatively  trifling  as  were  the  means  of  creating 
and  obtaining  articles  of  necessity,  they  were  sufficient  at  quite 
an  early  stage  of  development,  when  all  helped  and  none  idled, 
to  provide  a  reasonable  standard  of  comfort  for  the  whole  group, 
according  to  their  ideas  of  well-being.  Further,  they  learned  by 
experience  to  make  ready  to  some  extent  for  periods  of  scarcity 
by  isolating  known  sources  of  supply  under  tribal  and  rehgious 
ban  against  immediate  use,  or  by  hoarding  such  food  as  would 
keep  in  climates  where  this  preservation  was  possible. 

Yet  these  same  groups,  so  peaceful  %vithin  themselves,  were 
generally  bitterly  hostile  to  all  other  contiguous  groups,  even 
where  there  was  no  actual  dispute  about  territory  nor  any 
apparent  pressure  of  need  to  obtain  captives  for  eating.  Such 
warfare,  indeed,  is  still  carried  on  where  there  would  seem  to  be 
no  present  motive  for  conflict,  and  may  therefore  be  taken  as  a 
survival  from  times  when  the  causes  for  intertribal  hostilities 
were  manifold,  just  as  cannibalism  was  practised  as  a  religious 
rite  long  after  the  consumption  of  human  flesh  ceased  to  be  a 
common  usage. 

Those  communal  tribes  have  survived  to  our  own  day ;  they 


24  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

still  exist  in  greater  or  less  completeness,  and  have  largely 
contributed,  owing  to  the  careful  and  minute  investigations  of 
modern  anthropologists  and  sociologists,  to  our  knowledge  of 
the  life,  habits,  customs  and  sexual  relations  of  our  own  an- 
cestral progenitors  of  the  long  past.  The  time  has  gone  by 
when  these  fading  representatives  of  the  great  and  universal 
and  age-old  communal  epoch  were  regarded  either  as  the  relics 
of  the  golden  age  of  mankind,  or  were  pointed  to  as  fallen 
descendants  of  the  primitive  couple  from  Paradise.  They  are 
now  recognised  as,  so  to  say,  the  living  fossils  of  successive 
strata  in  the  long  annals  of  human  evolution.  From  them  we 
can  learn  by  actual  experience  how  high  himian  beings  in  the 
communist  stage  of  growth  had  risen  above  any  other  mammal, 
and  how  marvellous — in  spite  of  all  drawbacks — are  the  services 
which  their  own  forbears  of  prehistoric  periods  rendered  to  the 
coming  generations  of  our  race. 

Every  one  of  the  bed-rock  inventions  and  discoveries  of 
mankind,  without  which  further  progress  would  have  been 
impossible,  was  made  during  this  communal  period.  As  we 
examine  and  reflect  upon  each  advance  in  succession,  and  con- 
sider what  initiative,  what  patience,  what  originality,  what 
collective  individual  genius  were  required  to  begin  and  develop 
man's  early  strivings  to  control,  in  some  degree,  that  vast  and 
incomprehensible  sphere  of  nature  whose  several  actions  seemed 
to  him  to  be  under  the  direct  management  of  good  and  evil 
spirits — we  can  but  feel  unmeasured  astonishment  that  rude, 
untutored  savages  should  have  achieved  so  much  under  such 
circumstances,  even  given  an  infinity  of  time  in  which  to  accom- 
plish their  progress.  For  the  length  of  the  period  offers  no 
explanation  of  the  beginning  of  each  revolutionary  change  in 
the  method  of  production,  nor  of  the  results  obtained  when  the 
change  was  made. 

The  material  achievements  of  these  primitive  communists 
far  transcend  all  that  the  genius  of  civilisation  has  since  pro- 
duced. Let  us  remember  what  difficulties  they  had  to  over- 
come ;  there  were  no  precedents  to  guide,  no  triumphs  to  en- 
courage, no  proven  fruitful  methods  to  employ.  In  each  and 
every  case,  from  the  earliest  attempt  to  the  last  victory  over 
the  resistance  of  nature,  doubt  hung  around  the  whole  venture, 
handed  on,  we  know  not  how,  to  an  innumerable  succession  of 


PRIMITIVE  COMMUNISM  25 

generations.  How  long  did  it  take  naked  nomads,  with  their 
chance  protection  of  leaves  and  boughs,  to  invent  the  boomerang, 
to  realise  the  use  of  sun-dried  clay  for  the  erection  of  dwellings 
in  one  region,  or  bark  for  tents  in  another,  or  wigwams  with 
poles  and  skins  or  woven  mats  in  a  tliird  ?  The  invention  and 
use  of  flint  implements,  with  the  amazing  skill  displayed  in 
their  handling  for  industrial  purposes,  were  quite  as  note- 
worthy examples  of  the  development  of  man,  the  tool- 
manipulating  animal,  as  any  automatic  lathe  of  the  twentieth 
century  motived  by  steam  or  electricity.  Think  of  the  dis- 
covery of  fire  and  its  application  to  the  social  service  of  our 
race.  Whether  accidental  or  owing  to  some  inconceivable  hint 
of  undetected  possibility,  what  apparently  endless  toil  for  a 
problematical  result  our  remote  ancestors  undertook  when 
they  rubbed  dry  sticks  together  to  the  point  of  kindhng  and 
then  preserved  the  flame  thus  engendered  with  unremitting 
care !  Tradition  handed  on  the  memory  of  this  difficult  be- 
ginning and  renewal  in  the  fires  kept  burning,  under  conditions 
whose  sanctity  we  can  scarcely  comprehend,  through  the  ages 
in  the  households,  even  when  far  easier  methods  had  long  dis- 
placed the  rude  endeavour  of  the  more  ancient  tribesmen. 

But  the  progress  of  agriculture  is  more  remarkable  still. 
Notwithstanding  very  ingenious  conjectures,  we  are  still  quite 
at  a  loss  to  explain  the  earlier  stages  of  tillage  and  expectant 
cultivation.  We  laugh  as  we  read  of  how  some  South  American 
Indians  ate  the  seed  given  them  by  Jesuit  missionaries  to 
plant.  But  why  should  not  they  ?  They  were  still  living  in 
the  accidental  stage  of  human  existence.  The  grain  was  an 
immediate  boon  to  them.  How  many,  many  generations,  what 
u  vast  array  of  centuries,  lay  between  the  uncalculating  savage 
who  laid  hands  upon  what  was  eatable,  no  matter  how  he  came 
by  it,  and  devoured  it  forthwith,  and  the  forethought  of  the 
conmiunistic  barbarian  who  had  learnt  to  bury  the  seed  in  the 
confident  assm'ance  that  months  thereafter  he  should  derive 
immense  benefit  from  his  self-restraint,  prudence  and  scientific 
preparation  of  the  soil  with  digging  sticks.  The  immediate 
consumers  oi  the  seed,  and  the  planters  of  the  seed,  content  to 
await  the  operations  of  nature  for  a  crop,  seem  to  belong  to 
different  breeds  of  animals.  Their  forms  of  production  were 
entirely  different.    Yet  socially  they  were  alike.    Both  were 


26  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

communists.  If  we  were  able  to  trace  accm-ately  this  gi'owth 
of  human  social  power  from  fruit  and  nut  gathering,  tree-worm 
seeking,  animal  killing  by  boomerang — early  Egyptians  used  the 
boomerang — to  tillage  and  irrigation  of  the  soil,  we  should  go 
far  to  solve  so  much  as  can  be  solved  of  the  problem  of  human 
progress.  Yams,  potatoes,  maize,  wheat,  oats,  taro,  all  the 
results  of  intelligent  cultivation,  put  mankind  on  a  commun- 
istic plane  where  sudden  shortage  of  food  became  rare.  How- 
ever brutal  the  customs  of  the  tribe  might  be,  in  some  respects, 
the  necessaries  of  life  were,  in  the  main,  safe. 

So  it  was  throughout.  The  invention  of  that  wonderful 
contrivance,  the  bow  and  arrow,  for  hunting  and  war ;  the  net, 
the  spear  and  the  flare  for  fishing ;  the  weaving  of  cloth  from 
bark  and  fibres ;  the  making  and  the  baking  of  pottery  from 
clay ;  the  domestication  of  wild  animals ;  the  use  of  the  stencil- 
plate  for  adorning  bark  fabrics  and  woven  fibres  ;  the  smelting 
of  metals ;  the  discovery  and  development  of  the  wheel — each 
and  all  of  these  inventions,  and  many  others  which  seem  so 
simple  and  easy  to  us  to-day,  were  indispensable  steps  to  man's 
command  over  nature,  and  are  tributes  to  that  impulse  and 
spirit  of  progress  under  conmiunism,  coming  we  know  not 
whence,  which  was  the  basis  of  the  great  works  of  industry  and 
art  we  now  see  around  us.  Harmonised  collective  intelligence, 
devoted  to  the  advance  of  the  general  well-being,  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  whole  of  modern  industrial  society. 

On  river  and  sea  the  same.  The  boat,  the  paddle,  the  oar, 
the  sail,  the  rudder,  the  outrigger,  the  small  and  great  canoes, 
all  had  their  origin  under  communism.  Each  in  turn  is  a 
masterpiece  of  himian  ingenuity.  The  sail  alone  is  a  wonderful 
example  of  human  inventiveness,  used  by  our  ancestors  for 
locomotion  by  water  ages  ago.  How  long  it  may  have  taken 
to  discover  and  apply  the  sail  is  of  course  unknown :  what 
matters  is  that  success  was  attained  under  the  institution  of 
gentile  common  ownership.  It  is  so  easy  to  underrate  these 
early  achievements.  Yet  even  to-day,  in  this  era  of  precocity, 
with  all  the  winds  and  waves  of  heredity  and  social  instinct 
wafting  us  along,  it  would  take  a  very  clever  lad,  inheriting  all 
these  aptitudes,  the  growth  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years, 
to  tell  at  once  why  his  sailing  boat,  crossing  with  the  wind  blow- 
ing abeam,  should  go  forward  towards  the  other  side  of  the 


PRIMITIVE  COMMUNISM  27 

pond  instead  of  drifting  helplessly  to  leeward,  as,  without  a 
sail,  it  certainly  would.  Many  a  civilised  man  also  who  uses 
the  tiller  automatically  would  be  puzzled  to  explain  why  the 
pressure  of  the  water  on  a  flat  piece  of  wood  immersed  at  the 
stern  of  his  boat  can  turn  the  vessel  in  motion  this  way  or  that 
even  if  he  has  produced  the  same  effect  before  by  the  use  of  a 
paddle  or  an  oar  in  a  canoe.  Yet  savages  and  barbarians  had 
acquired  the  knowledge  and  application  of  both  these  important 
improvements  while  still  in  the  communistic  state.  Sailing 
and  steering  had  few  secrets  for  them.  All  this  done  at  sea  is 
really  more  remarkable  than  the  progress  in  the  production  of 
food,  the  planting  and  improvement  of  trees,  or  even  the 
irrigation  works  carried  on  by  the  same  tribes  on  land. 

To  the  civilised  mind,  moreover,  absorbing,  through  custom, 
education  and  persistent  usage,  the  idea  that  nothing  can  be 
done  by  intelligent  adults  in  the  way  of  invention  except  for 
individual  advantage  and  private  gain,  it  is  still  harder  to 
realise  that  all  the  essential  steps  towards  higher  knowledge 
and  culture  were  taken  by  unknown  persons  who  never  thought 
they  had  any  right  to  private  gain  from  the  realisation  and 
application  of  their  ideas.  No  more  did  the  tribe  as  a  whole 
imagine  that  any  personal  ownership  could  exist  in  regard 
to  the  land  which  they  jointly  cultivated.  From  the  nomad 
roaming  over  forest  and  plain  in  search  of  nuts,  fruits,  tree 
slugs  or  easily  captured  game,  to  the  well-behaved  and  poUte 
savage  or  barbarian  on  the  highroad  to  civilisation,  common 
work,  common  property,  common  use  of  inventions,  common 
distribution  of  products,  natural  or  cultivated,  was  the  custom  ; 
economic  equality  the  invariable  rule. 


CHAPTER  II 

EQUALITY  WITHIN  THE  GENS 

Among  the  tribes  which  still  carry  on  this  natural  communism, 
even  in  those  where  the  caste  of  chiefs  has  been  instituted,  and 
tribal  slavery  has  been  introduced,  the  stage  of  collective  in- 
dustry, division  of  labour  and  organisation  of  considerable 
works  by  skilled  labourers,  to  whom  the  very  idea  of  payment 
for  services  is  unknown,  gives  a  totally  different  conception  of 
what  such  savagery  and  barbarism  means  from  that  which  is 
commonly  taught.  Thus  we  assume  that  a  cannibal  is  neces- 
sarily a  bestial  savage  of  disgusting  type.  Not  at  all.  A 
cannibal  chief  may  be,  and  often  is,  a  person  of  exceptional 
politeness,  having  a  keen  sense  of  the  duties  of  communal 
hospitality,  with  no  ulterior  view  to  the  cooking  and  consuming 
of  his  guest.  The  members  of  the  tribe  engaged  at  any  ordinary 
meal  will,  as  a  matter  of  propriety  to  themselves,  gracefully 
offer  the  friendly  passer-by  a  share  of  their  food.  Those,  too, 
who  are  accepted  as  friends  and  pass  the  night  in  a  native 
village  are  spontaneously  offered  female  attentions,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  which  it  may  be  as  inconvenient  to  accept  as  it  would 
be  considered  insulting  to  decline.  Certainly  the  communal 
savage  or  barbarian,  naked,  queerly  decorated,  anthropopha- 
gous and,  in  certain  matters,  brutal  and  superstitious  as  he 
may  be,  often  possesses  a  standard  of  courtesy,  as  well  as  of 
personal  dignity,  which  may  compare  favourably  not  only  with 
the  proletariat  of  civilised  cities  but  even  with  the  highly 
educated  upper  classes  of  our  own  country. 

The  details  of  the  production  and  industry  of  such  communal 
tribes  are  exceedingly  interesting  and  afford  remarkable 
evidence,  as  in  the  case  of  Indian  artificers  who  have  attained  to 
a  more  advanced  grade  of  social  development,  of  what  inherited 
skill  and  early  apprenticeship  may  create.  This  may  be  traced 
among  all  tribes  still  existing  in  different  parts  of  the  world, 
as  well  as  in  the  remains  of  those  that  have  passed  away.     Thus 

28 


EQUALITY  WITHIN  THE  GENS  29 

the  elaborate  system  of  irrigation  carried  out  in  mountainous 
regions  with  watered  crops  extending  layer  above  layer  up  to  a 
high  level,  the  water  being  distributed  to  the  successive  planta- 
tions of  wet  crops  such  as  taro,  or  dry  cereals  such  as  maize, 
shows  a  knowledge  of  this  method  of  enhancing  cultivation  fully 
equal  in  its  way  to  anything  that  modem  engineers  could  com- 
pass. For  these  savages  or  barbarians,  with  nothing  better  to 
aid  them  than  hollowed  logs,  will  irrigate  a  whole  series  of  hill- 
sides, and  thus  make  provision  against  any  probable  shortage  of 
more  easily  acquired  produce. 

But  their  constructions  are  even  more  surprising  than  their 
agriculture.  A  great  communal  house  which,  with  its  complete 
roofing  and  decorations,  may  take  a  year  or  several  years  to 
construct  is  a  work  of  art  in  every  respect.  The  artisans  and 
labourers  who  build  it  are  entirely  dependent  in  the  lower  stage 
of  development  upon  flint  tools  for  their  work,  and  are  of  course 
destitute  of  the  many  mechanical  contrivances  which  thousands 
of  years  of  civilisation,  growing  out  of  their  ingenuity,  have  pro- 
vided for  their  successors.  The  great  double  canoe,  which  is  a 
tribal  possession,  represents  a  still  more  remarkable  triumph  of 
craftsmanship.  This  fine  vessel,  with  a  deck-house  and  huge 
sail,  is  made  out  of  planks  sewn  together  with  coco-nut  fibre, 
but  so  carefully  fitted  and  adjusted  that  the  canoes  make  little 
water,  even  in  a  considerable  sea-way,  and  with  a  large  body  of 
men  on  board.  The  deck  also  is  so  splendidly  adzed  with  a 
flint  adze  that  the  best  European  plane  handled  by  a  highly 
skilled  ship's  carpenter  cannot  touch  its  perfectly  level  surface. 
Yet  this  astonishing  specimen  of  results  obtained  by  sheer 
human  aptitude,  used  at  every  mechanical  disadvantage,  is 
constructed  without  the  employment  of  any  contractor,  or  any 
payment,  as  we  understand  it,  to  the  artisans  engaged  for  two 
entire  years  solely  upon  this  single  vessel,  unless  their  labour 
should  be  required  for  some  exceptional  assistance  in  agri- 
culture. During  the  whole  of  this  time  these  skilled  craftsmen 
are  fed  and,  so  far  as  necessary,  clothed,  by  the  produce  from  the 
land,  and  the  fishing  in  the  sea  and  river,  like  other  members  of 
the  tribe.  They  would  be  unable  to  conceive,  in  their  natural 
state,  and  before  the  arrival  of  white  men,  of  any  form  of 
remimeration  for  this  great  skill  other  than  that  of  sharing  with 
their  fellow  tribes-people  the  produce  of  their  common  toil. 


30  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

In  the  most  complete  form  of  this  gentile  economy  where  all 
are  socially  equal,  though  female  infants  are  sometimes  exposed, 
children  are  regarded  as  the  children  of  the  tribe  and  the  idea 
that  any  of  them  should  go  short  of  food  or  necessary  attention 
so  long  as  the  means  of  well-being  are  at  disposal,  and  the  tribe 
itself  subsists,  would  not  occur  to  any  of  them.  Not  all  the 
cruelty  and  brutality  and  superstition  spoken  of  destroys  the 
fellowship  and  fraternity  which  permeates  every  function  of 
their  daily  life.  Nay,  the  very  fetishism  of  semi-supernatural 
conceptions  and  the  toleration  of  an  idealised  animalism  are 
inseparably  connected  with  the  common  existence  of  blood 
relations  in  their  group.  In  war  as  in  peace  the  ties  of  blood 
and  of  kindred  bind  each  to  all  and  all  to  each.  To  avenge  a 
relation  by  blood,  if  wrong  be  done  to  any,  is  the  sacred  duty  of 
the  whole  closely  knit  fraternity,  who,  tracing  their  descent 
through  the  female  line,  of  necessity  make  common  cause  in  the 
vendetta. 

When  war  is  waged  against  another  tribe  the  same  desperate 
unanimity  of  hatred  renders  the  struggle  one  of  mutual  annihila- 
tion or  absorption.  Mere  conquest  or  domination  is  neither 
desirable  nor  possible  on  either  side.  Captives,  if  not  adopted, 
are  tortured  to  death,  or  killed  and  eaten.  Later  only,  as  power 
of  producing  wealth  increases,  are  they  either  absorbed  into 
the  victorious  group  or  retained  as  tribal  slaves.  This  is  the 
first  important  step  towards  the  break-up  of  the  gentile  social 
arrangements  based  on  equality  of  condition  for  all.  In  general, 
the  cruelty  shown  towards  enemies  contrasted  with  the  good 
feeling  encouraged  and  maintained  within  the  limits  of  the  tribe 
itself.  (The  exceptions  to  this  rule  prove  nearly  always  to  be  the 
victims  of  religious  ceremonies,  sacrificed  for  what  is  supposed 
to  be  the  good  of  the  tribe.)  Communism,  while  leading  small 
numbers  of  people  to  live  harmoniously  with  one  another,  did 
nothing  to  restrain  the  ferocity  and  ruthlessness  of  primitive 
peoples  outside  the  circle  of  their  own  blood-relationship  in  the 
gens  and  tribe. 

Morgan's  discovery,  based  upon  his  life-long  investigations 
into  the  scheme  of  blood  relationships  among  savages  and 
barbarians  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  that  the  gens  as  it  existed 
among  the  North  American  Indians  was  the  unit  of  the  early 
forms  of  ancient  society,  entirely  revolutionised  the  conception 


EQUALITY  WITHIN  THE  GENS  31 

of  human  sexual  relations  and  domestic  arrangements  at  all 
the  stages  of  development  up  to  the  beginning  of  civilisation. 
Certain  widespread  relationships  which  still  existed  could  only 
be  reconciled  with  a  form  of  marriage  that  had  almost,  or 
entirely,  disappeared.  This  led  him  to  the  assumption  that 
these  relationships,  founded  on  a  complicated  system  of  con- 
sanguinity, must  have  arisen  out  of  the  group  marriage,  which, 
in  its  partial  survival,  has  been  mistaken  by  many  travellers 
for  mere  promiscuity.  That  a  group  of  brothers  should  have  as 
wives  in  common  a  group  of  sisters  is  a  type  of  sexual  relation- 
ship difficult  to  comprehend  by  us  of  to-day,  with  centuries  upon 
centuries  of  monogamy,  accompanied  by  concubinage  and 
various  forms  of  prostitution,  behind  us.  But  the  probability 
amounting  almost  to  certainty  of  the  existence  of  such  a 
marriage  connection  can  alone  explain  those  relationships 
which,  drawn  from  innumerable  sources,  Morgan  first,  and  more 
recently  others,  have  been  at  such  great  pains  to  investigate  and 
tabulate. 

It  so  happens  that  I  myself  first  came  across  these  elaborate 
and  systematic  researches  into  savage  and  barbarian  sex 
relations  just  fifty  years  ago.  Morgan  had  not  at  that  time 
formulated  the  theory  which  a  few  years  later  destroyed  the 
old  conception  of  the  permanent  universality  o^  the  mono- 
gamous family,  rendered  him  famous  and  greatly  disturbed  all 
who  had  not  mastered  his  remarkable  array  of  the  facts. 
During  my  stay  in  Polynesia  I  chanced  to  meet  the  celebrated 
Wesleyan  missionary,  the  Rev.  Lorimer  Fison,  then  in  charge 
of  a  mission  on  the  Rewa  river,  in  the  great  island  of  Viti 
Levu.  Fison  in  the  course  of  conversation  told  me  that  the 
Smithsonian  Institute  of  the  United  States,  moved  thereto  "  by 
a  man  named  Morgan,"  had  sent  round  a  series  of  questions 
as  to  the  scheme  of  relationships  existing  and  acknowledged 
among  the  tribes  throughout  Polynesia.  The  same  questions, 
he  understood,  had  been  submitted  to  the  missionaries  and 
others  who  took  an  interest  in  the  matter  all  over  the  world. 

Fison,  for  his  part,  comprehending  the  importance  of  the 
inquiry,  went  most  carefully  into  the  subject  and  had  been 
surprised  to  find  that  the  theory  of  relationships  throughout  the 
archipelago  in  which  he  served  was  nearly  identical  with  that  of 
the  North  American  Indians  with  whom  Morgan  (himself  a 


32  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

blood  brother  and  of  adopted  kinship  of  the  Seneca  gens  of  the 
Iroquois  tribe)  had  commenced  his  general  analysis.  Though 
astonished  and  interested  in  what  Fison  showed  me,  as  well  as 
in  his  remarks  upon  descent  reckoned  through  the  mother, 
which  everywhere  prevailed,  I  failed  at  this  time  to  appreciate 
the  value  of  the  work  that  was  being  done  ;  nor  did  ]\Ir  Lorimer 
Fison  then  grasp  fully  the  object  or  the  tendency  of  Morgan's 
vast  survey  of  human  family  relations,  sexual  arrangements 
and  tabulation  of  relationships.  Nevertheless  after  providing 
all  available  information  for  the  Smithsonian  Institute  from 
Polynesia  he  followed  this  up,  not  long  afterwards  (having  been 
transferred  in  the  meantime  to  Australia),  by  a  series  of  detailed 
observations  and  records  concerning  the  still  earlier  tribal  and 
sexual  arrangements  as  displayed  among  the  nomadic  hordes 
in  that  vast  island  continent.  These  with  their  primitive 
"  classes  "  and  their  almost  unlimited  right  of  sexual  intercourse 
between  the  males  of  one  "  class  "  and  the  females  of  another 
"  class,"  no  matter  how  far  split  off  by  segmentation  or  divided 
by  distance,  went  still  further  to  confirm  the  thesis  which 
the  originator  of  the  entire  investigation  had  then  begun  to 
formulate  at  length. 

Similar  evidence  poured  in  from  every  quarter,  which  it  is 
not  necessary  for  the  present  purpose  to  quote.  Enough  to  say 
that  Asia,  Africa  and  Europe,  as  well  as  America,  Australia,  the 
great  islands  of  the  Indian  Ocean  and  Malay  Archipelago,  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  New  Zealand  and  other  groups  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean  all,  in  the  main,  afforded  proof  of  the  contentions  based 
upon  the  original  discovery  and  the  deductions  therefrom.  Here 
and  there  the  conclusions  have  been  pushed  too  far ;  but  a 
series  of  facts  were  established  which  gave  an  almost  complete 
summary  of  the  sexual  relations  existing  under  communism 
from  what  may  be  called  full  promiscuity,  or  untrammelled 
intercourse  between  men  and  women  of  every  age  and  relation- 
ship, through  group  marriage  and  the  subsequent  establishment 
of  the  gens  itself,  to  a  light  and  easily  dissolved  monogamous  tie 
between  men  of  various  gentes  and  women  of  another  gens. 

Promiscuity,  such  as  intercourse  between  brothers  and 
sisters,  or  even  parents  and  children,  seems  so  shocking  to  modem 
observers  that  they  readily  put  down  these  to  the  influence  of 
the  devil,  or  the  uncontrolled   subornations  of  original  sin. 


EQUALITY  WITHIN  THE  GENS  3S 

The  absence  of  all  disgust  or  horror  in  regard  to  such  matters 
denotes,  however,  not  crimmality,  but  lack  of  experience  and 
ignorance.  As  mankind  slowly  awakened  to  the  draw^backs 
to  their  progeny  of  such  "  incestuous,"  though  then  perfectly 
moral,  associations,  our  remote  forbears  made  the  restrictions 
upon  these  close  consanguineous  types  of  intercourse  more  and 
more  stringent.  The  advantage  of  such  limitation  may  be 
presumed  to  have  become  gradually  apparent.  Those  tribes 
which,  from  any  cause,  abandoned  the  old  system  discovered 
that  they  had  better  children  as  their  successors  than  those 
who  adhered  to  the  previous  unchecked  promiscuity. 

Conscious  or  unconscious  natural  selection,  for  the  purpose 
of  generating  the  fittest  of  the  race,  slowly  worked  its  way 
upwards  and  onwards.  Sexual  intercourse  between  persons  of 
close  consanguinity  ceased  by  degrees  to  be  customary  and 
then  even  allowable.  Marriage  between  first  cousins  in  blood 
through  the  mother  would  be  considered,  under  the  conditions 
thus  developed,  quite  as  incestuous  as  we  should  consider 
marriage  between  brother  and  sister.  Thence  arose  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  gens,  in  which  the  whole  of  the  members,  male 
and  female,  are  boimd  together  by  close  blood  relationship 
through  the  mother.  From  this  point  the  evolution  of  sex 
relations  and  gentile  institutions  may  be  traced,  with  com- 
parative certitude  and  little  variation,  through  all  the  gradations 
of  savagery  and  lower  barbarism,  up  to  the  higher  barbarism 
prior  to  the  beginnings  of  civilisation. 

It  is  with  the  establishment  and  development  of  the  gens,  due 
to  the  steady  limitation  of  the  circle  of  permissible  sexual  inter- 
course, and  the  introduction  of  the  pairing  family,  that  the  unit 
of  barbarous  social  life,  customs  and  organisation  attains  its 
highest  point.  Loose  at  first,  as  it  was,  this  pairing  family  in 
nowise  interfered  with  the  communistic  arrangement  of  the 
household  that  had  previously  existed.  As  before,  the  parent- 
age of  the  cliildren  was  derived  from  the  certitude  of  birth  from 
the  mother,  never  from  the  still  doubtful  parentage  of  the 
father.  Moreover,  as  marriage  between  members  of  the  con- 
sanguineous gens  was  strictly  forbidden,  the  wives  were  all,  or 
nearly  all,  of  the  same  gens,  while  the  husbands  were  drawn  from 
different  gentes.  Thus  the  control  of  the  household  and  its 
general  management,  its  cooking,  decoration,  small  manufacture, 
c 


34  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

etc.,  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  women.  In  the  best  period  of 
barbarism  not  only  were  men  socially  and  economically  equal, 
except  in  so  far  as  they  rendered  voluntary  deference  and 
obedience  to  leaders  in  war,  and  controllers  in  peace,  of  their 
own  choice,  but  women  were  accorded,  or  rather  naturally 
possessed,  the  right  to  take  part  and  vote  in  the  gatherings  of  the 
tribe.     Their  services  and  influence  were  publicly  acknowledged. 

In  some  respects  their  position  was  even  preferable  to  that  of 
the  men,  seeing  that  the  communal  household  was  under  their 
management,  children  were  recognised  as  theirs  far  more  than 
the  husbands,  the  descent  being  reckoned  through  them,  not 
through  the  father,  and  inheritance  of  such  small,  strictly 
personal  property  as  might  belong  to  the  man  and  woman  going, 
at  death  of  either  party,  to  the  wife  and  her  gens,  with  entire 
exclusion  of  the  blood  relations  of  the  husband.  Such  being 
the  advantages  of  the  women,  their  status  was  relatively  higher 
individually  and  collectively  than  it  has  ever  been  since. 

The  gentile  system  was  at  first,  in  its  theory  and  generally 
in  practice,  as  complete  a  democracy,  on  a  small  scale,  as  the 
world  has  seen.  Essentially  a  league  of  blood  relationship, 
with  brotherhood,  sisterhood  and  mutual  respect  for  all :  the 
children  being  the  cherished  belongings  of  the  whole  maternal 
gens  :  rights  and  duties,  duties  and  rights  being  inextricably 
blended  in  one  common  tribal  and  gentile  loyalty  to  the  col- 
lective advantage  of  all  in  peace  and  in  war  :  this  combination 
of  free  and  equal  men  and  women  had  arrived  at  a  state  of 
mutual  aid  and  mutual  succour  which  might  well  have  led  to  a 
permanent  and  beneficent  association  for  all  time.  Even  the 
elected  war  lords  and  peaceful  administrators  could  be  removed 
at  the  will  of  the  gentile  members.  There  were  no  police,  no 
prostitutes,  no  property  to  create  economic  domination,  no 
incitement  to  crimes  of  plunder,  passion  or  jealousy  within  the 
gens,  and  no  theft.  Such  drawbacks  and  difficulties  as  arose 
were  dealt  with  by  the  gens  and  the  tribe.  Even  murder  was 
treated,  not  as  a  case  for  mere  individual  punishment,  but  as  a 
matter  of  blood  retribution,  on  account  of  the  consanguinity  of 
the  person  killed  to  all  the  rest  of  the  gens  and  tribe.  If  anyone 
injured  any  member  of  the  gens  he  injured  all  its  members ;  and 
as  the  killing  of  a  member  was  the  greatest  injury  that  could 
be  inflicted  upon  this  closely  knit  fraternity,  a  blood-feud  was 


EQUALITY  WITHIN  THE  GENS  35 

started  by  the  gens  against  the  gens,  or  even  by  the  tribe  against 
the  tribe  of  the  offender,  until  the  matter  was  settled,  either  by 
agreement  between  the  gentes  on  one  side  or  the  other,  or  by 
the  killing  of  the  murderer  by  the  members  of  the  aggrieved 
gens — whieh  of  itself  balanced  the  account. 

Nevertheless  the  gens,  with  all  its  common  property,  com- 
munity of  living  in  the  household,  common  relationship  and 
consanguinity,  common  rights  and  duties,  common  friendships 
and  common  enmities  in  the  gens,  the  combination  of  gentes  in 
the  phratry  and  the  further  combination  of  the  phratries  in  the 
tribe,  never  constituted  a  family,  or  a  grouping  of  families,  in 
the  civilised  sense.  At  the  period  of  the  fullest  development 
of  the  gentes  this  pairing  marriage  was  never  the  unit  of  the 
society  in  any  part  of  its  forms  and  ramifications.  The  society 
was  built  up  from  and  upon  the  gens  and  the  gens  alone.  But 
the  man  and  his  mate,  or  rather  the  female  mate  and  her  man, 
could  not  belong  to  the  same  gens.  Husband  and  wife,  in  the 
nearest  approach  to  monogamy  attained  under  the  complete 
gentile  system,  belonged,  of  necessity,  to  different  gentes.  Half 
belonged  to  the  gens  of  the  male,  half  to  the  gens  of  the  female. 
The  latter,  since  the  children  were  recognised  as  of  the  gens  of 
the  mother,  and  she  was  in  nowise,  economically,  or  socially, 
dependent  upon  or  under  the  control  of  the  man,  was  the 
stronger  half  of  the  two.  Conmiunism  and  gentilism  meant,  in 
fact,  social  equaUty  and  freedom  for  the  woman  in  her  marriage 
relations  with  her  paired  man,  and  a  similar  freedom  and 
equality  for  the  man  in  relation  to  the  woman.  The  mainte- 
nance of  the  tie  was  regulated  by  custom  and  general  opinion,  not 
by  law,  nor  even  by  traditional  observance.  The  severance  of 
the  connection,  for  a  sufficient  reason,  was  not  encouraged,  but 
was  easily  brought  about.  The  modern  monogamous  family 
based  on  male  superiority  and  private  property  was  an  utterly 
different  arrangement. 

Here  then  was  a  system  of  society  arising  from  the  gens  to 
wider  combinations  which,  as  it  now  appears,  constituted,  like 
communism  in  ownership  and  distribution,  the  foundation  of 
all  the  aggregations  of  human  beings  over  the  entire  globe  that 
had  passed  out  of  the  mere  nomadic  stage. 

On  the  continent  of  America  mankind  had  not  developed 
into  civilisation  from  the  gentile  relationships  and  communal 


36  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

forms  at  the  time  of  the  discovery  and  conquest.  In  Europe 
and  Asia  civiHsation  has  had  the  upper  hand  lor  many,  many 
centuries.  But  in  those  continents,  also,  only  the  existence 
of  the  gens,  in  the  shape  thus  analysed  and  expounded,  can  ex- 
plain fully  the  relationships,  settlements,  tribal  arrangements, 
democratic  constitution,  leadership  in  war,  government  and 
council  in  peace,  together  with  the  age-long  permanence  of  the 
gentile  bond  and  connection,  even  when  its  basis  had  changed 
and  its  common  ownership  had  almost  entirely  disappeared. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  DECAY   OF  THE   GENTILE  SYSTEM 

So  complete  in  itself,  so  fully  adapted  to  meet  the  fraternal 
and  gregarious  instincts  of  humanity,  was  this  gentile  economic 
communism  that  we  may  well  feel  surprise  that  its  manifest 
advantages,  within  its  own  limits,  did  not  enable  the  institu- 
tions thus  collectively  created  to  evolve  even  liigher  powers  of 
man  over  nature,  such  astounding  discoveries  and  inventions 
being  already  made  and  used.  As  we  survey  this  development 
in  Greece,  in  Rome,  in  Germany,  in  Slavonia,  in  Meso- 
potamia and  Eastern  Asia,  it  would  not  appear  to  be  beyond 
the  capacity  of  such  able  races,  Aryan,  Semitic  and  Turanian, 
to  carry  this  organisation  onwards  to  the  full  fruition  of  their 
achievements,  breaking  down  the  tribal  antagonisms  by  federa- 
tions, with  communism  and  gentilism  still  maintained.  Having 
reached  so  high  a  level  in  comfort  and  general  prosperity  com- 
pared with  their  savage  and  lower  barbarian  forbears,  it  would 
seem  feasible,  or  at  least  not  more  difficult  than  the  course 
eventually  followed,  that  mankind  might  have  proceeded  con- 
tinuously on  the  same  lines,  and  thus  avoided  the  troubles  and 
disasters  to  the  race  which  resulted,  in  the  course  of  ages,  from 
what  actually  took  place. 

The  change  from  the  practically  universal  gentilism  and 
communism  that  occurred  at  different  periods  in  different  parts 
of  the  world,  and  is  not  wholly  completed  yet,  is  the  greatest 
social  revolution  known  in  human  history.  Its  full  purport  and 
influence  has  not  perhaps  even  now  been  fully  appreciated, 
because  the  steps  of  this  crucial  transformation  are  exceedingly 
difficult  to  trace  with  accuracy  and  because  the  tribes  who 
underwent  the  entire  overthrow  of  their  economic,  sexual 
and  social  system  were  wholly  ignorant  of  the  causes  or  the 
consequences  of  what  they  themselves  were  unconsciously 
doing. 

To  a  gentile  tribesman  private  property  in  land,  means  of 

37 

267444 


38  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

creating  wealth,  food,  large  houses  or  canoes,  was  not  only 
non-existent,  but  inconceivable.  The  domination  ol"  man  over 
woman,  the  supremacy  of  the  father  in  the  monogamous  family, 
and  the  regulation  of  all  affairs  on  the  foundation  of  locality  and 
possession  could  no  more  have  been  anticipated  by  such  a 
brother  or  sister  of  the  gens  than  a  slave  or  a  serf  could  have 
foreseen  the  organisation  of  a  capitalist  trust.  He  would  have 
declared,  if  such  a  possibility  of  the  realisation  of  the  unknown 
and  the  inconceivable  could  have  been  brought  home  to  his 
mind,  that  a  society  of  that  kind  would  have  been  anarchical, 
immoral  and  disgusting  to  such  a  degree  that  life  would  not 
be  worth  living  for  the  great  majority  of  those  who  composed 
it — in  which  hypothetical  judgment  the  gentile  discrimination 
would  not  have  been  so  very  far  wrong. 

What  renders  the  break-up  of  the  gentile  and  communist 
forms,  with  their  conservative  yet  progressive  institutions  ex- 
tending over  such  vast  periods,  the  more  difficult  of  compre- 
hension is  that,  in  the  higher  stage  of  barbarism  approaching 
to  the  confines  of  civilisation,  considerable  tribal  wealth  had 
already  been  accumulated.  There  was  not  only  comfort  but 
luxury,  as  they  would  deem  it,  in  many  of  the  tribes,  before  the 
stage  of  private  property  and  the  acceptance  of  male  superiority 
was  reached.  The  probability  of  "  hard  times,"  due  to  natural 
causes,  such  as  tempest,  drought,  earthquake  or  floods,  had 
been  largely  provided  against  by  storage  of  food  and  the  taboo 
of  natural  supplies.  Thus  economic  security  and  well-being 
were  ensured  within,  while  thorough  physical  training  and 
habitual  use  of  arms  by  the  gentile  males  gave  a  reasonable 
safeguard  against  attack  from  without.  Nor  were  these  people 
devoid  of  culture  or  destitute  of  art.  When,  therefore,  all 
allowance  is  made  for  the  hideous  cruelty  of  the  animal  man 
towards  his  own  species  at  all  periods  of  his  existence,  there 
seemed  no  special  reason  for  a  crucial  modification  of  those 
arrangements  which  were  adequate  for  the  needs  of  the  people 
who  lived  happily  under  them  at  the  time,  with  every  prospect 
of  improvement  in  coming  generations. 

There  seems  no  doubt,  however,  that  this  very  same  increase 
of  the  common  wealth,  due  to  the  greater  power  of  man  over 
nature,  was  directly  and  indirectly  the  cause  of  the  overthrow 
of  the  most  long-lived  and  the  most  harmonious  social  system 


DECAY  OF  THE  GENTILE  SYSTEM        39 

under  which  our  race  has  ever  existed.  Gentile  relations  and 
common  ownership  of  all  important  property  sufficed  for  gentes, 
phratries,  tribes,  and  even  for  "  nations  "  or  confederations  of 
tribes.  They  could  not  be  adequate  for  those  wider,  still  less 
for  those  world-wide,  connections  of  humanity  which,  for  some 
inscrutable  reason,  became  inevitable  in  the  evolution  of  man- 
kind all  over  the  earth.  Yet  the  first  effect  of  the  discovery 
that  human  beings  could,  by  their  socially  organised  labour, 
produce  more  than  their  keep,  had,  at  least  in  one  direction,  a 
softening  influence. 

Cannibalism  commonly  existed  where  food,  especially  animal 
food,  was  scarce.  When,  however,  the  tribal  warriors  were 
better  fed,  and  especially  when  they  had  arrived  at  the  point 
where  a  moderate  provision  of  meat  or  of  cereals  was  available, 
cannibalism  gradually  lost  its  chief  attraction.  Human  beings 
were  then  able  to  furnish  by  their  labour  all  that  was  necessary 
for  their  nourishment  and  something  more.  That  "  some- 
thing more  "  was  the  direct  economic  inducement  to  clemency. 
To  torture  and  kill,  to  feed  and  eat  enemies  was  then  dis- 
covered to  be  a  waste  of  good  material  for  productive  work. 
Far  better  keep  them  as  slaves  to  the  tribe  and  devour  them  by 
degrees  in  the  shape  of  their  product,  less  their  keep,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  entire  gentile  community.  This  view  gradually 
prevailed.  Cannibalism  slowly  died  out,  and  its  memory  was 
only  retained  by  the  high  ceremonial  of  religious  himian  sacri- 
fices, at  which  time  the  flesh  of  victims  was  still  cooked  and 
solemnly  consumed.^ 

Thus  tribal  enslavement  of  captives  was  a  distinct  advance 
in  human  conduct  towards  defeated  and  captured  enemies. 
But  the  slaves  of  the  tribe  were  outside  the  whole  gentile  com- 
munity, under  whose  control  they  lived.  Whether  the  victims 
were  cannibals  or  vegetarians  to  start  with  made  no  difference 
to  the  lot  of  the  prisoners.  They  had  no  rights ;  they  could 
have  no  rights.  The  gentile  system  recognised  no  inferiority 
within  the  gens.     Consequently  the  slaves  remained  in  a  state 

*  In  the  matter  of  habitual  anthropophagy,  also,  it  has  been  found,  even  in  modem 
times,  that  the  pig  is  a  far  more  effective  propagandist  than  the  missionary.  Pig,  in 
fact,  replaces  man  as  food.  A  higher  conception  of  human  utility  and  a  more  genial 
conduct  of  appetite  is  based  upon  pork.  In  some  regions  also  the  cannibal  is  spoken 
of,  among  tribes  who  have  abandoned  the  practice,  as  a  person  addicted  to  the 
consumption  of  "  long  pig." 


40  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

of  permanent  subjugation,  as  human  machines,  to  be  used  for 
any  purpose  the  tribe,  its  chiefs  and  priests  might  decree. 
This  advance  itself  was  almost  certainly  due  to  an  economic 
cause — namely,  to  the  fact  that  it  had  become  worth  while  for 
the  tribe  to  keep  captives  alive  in  order  to  benefit  by  their 
labour  as  slaves.  Therefore  it  was  discovered  that  this  course 
was  distinctly  moral :  the  enslavement  of  captives  received  such 
high  ethical  approval  as  was  then  obtainable.  Lastly,  this  new 
custom  of  saving  the  lives  of  the  vanquished  went  a  step  further, 
and  religion  blessed  and  sanctified  that  which  economics  had 
ordained  and  ethics  justified.  This  rule  of  human  progress  will 
be  found  reasserting  itself  frequently  at  every  stage  of  human 
development,  whether  the  actual  advance  was  at  the  particular 
time  favourable  to  the  general  well-being  of  humanity  or  the 
reverse.  Nobody  could  truthfully  deny  that  the  substitution 
of  tribal  slavery  for  tribal  slaughter,  killing  by  torture  and 
cannibalism,  was  an  amelioration  of  brutal  savagery.  Neverthe- 
less, viewing  the  results  produced  throughout  the  ages,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  institution  of  slavery  was  not  in  the 
end  more  cruel  than  the  horrible  customs  it  displaced.  Eco- 
nomic and  social  progress,  however,  takes  no  account  of  the 
martyrdom  of  man  in  its  inevitable  course,  nor  has  it  any  sense 
whatever  of  morality  or  religion. 

In  the  early  days  of  tribal  and  patriarchal  slavery  which  fol- 
lowed upon  gentile  and  communal  society  of  blood-relationship, 
equality  and  democracy,  the  treatment  of  slaves  seems  to 
have  been  relatively  good  and  even  kindly.  Though  forming 
no  part  of  the  tribe  or  gens,  and  thus  wholly  without  personal 
status  or  individual  or  collective  influence,  there  is  nothing  to 
show,  from  the  tribal  slavery  which  remains  in  different  parts 
of  the  world,  that  slaves  were  subjected  to  cruelty  in  working 
for  the  tribes  when  this  fate,  instead  of  torture  and  death,  befell 
them.  They  received  food,  clothing  and  housing  as  they  did 
before  their  defeat  and  capture  ;  they  were  free  to  intermarry 
among  themselves  according  to  their  own  rites  and  customs ; 
their  labour  was  Uttle  harder  than  it  had  been  for  them  as  free 
tribes-people,  though  the  product  belonged  to  their  masters 
instead  of  to  themselves.  Under  favourable  conditions,  the 
tribes  which  possessed  slaves  were  better  provided  with  the 
necessaries  of  life  than  those  who  did  not,  and  the  wai-riors  of 


DECAY  OF  THE  GENTILE  SYSTEM        41 

the  conquering  tribe  were  left  more  free  to  attend  to  the  business 
of  war  than  they  were  before.  The  slaves,  that  is  to  say,  did 
much  of  the  work  of  production.  But,  exchange  being  yet 
in  its  infancy,  and  private  property  on  any  considerable  scale 
unknown,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  for  the  purpose  of  getting  more  wealth  for  the  tribe  and 
its  chief,  elective  or  hereditary.  Nor  were  there  any  elaborate 
domestic  services  to  be  performed,  failure  in  which  brought 
down  merciless  flogging  or  even  death  upon  the  slave  culprit 
at  a  later  stage. 

There  was  plenty  of  everyday  brutality  and  cruelty  in 
connection  with  rehgious  rites,  erection  of  great  buildings  or 
completion  of  other  important  tribal  work.  It  was  part  of 
savage  or  barbarian  ceremonial.  But  little  of  the  cold,  calcu- 
lating torture  which  was  inflicted  later,  at  the  caprice  of  a  slave- 
owner, or  in  order  to  screw  more  labour  out  of  the  slaves,  was 
to  be  found  under  these  tribal  conditions.  The  slaves  them- 
selves, in  spite  of  all  their  social  degradation,  still  formed  part 
of  the  tribe.  So  it  was  when  private  property  had  become  the 
chief  social  institution,  when  man  was  completely  dominant 
inside  as  well  as  outside  the  household,  and  descent  had  begun 
to  be  reckoned  through  the  father  instead  of  the  mother,  in- 
heritance following  the  same  line.  At  this  period,  also,  slavery 
was  comparatively  mild.  Thus  when  the  nomadic  period  of 
flocks  and  herds  had  been  reached,  and  patriarchal  authority 
^vith  individual  ownership  was  the  rule,  the  slaves  of  the 
polygamous  household  formed  part  of  this  great  family.  The 
personal  relations  existing  between  the  owner-in-chief,  his  sons 
and  other  relations  and  the  slaves  who  belonged  to  them  were 
not  of  a  harsh  character.  This,  although  it  was  during  that 
period  probably  that  exchange  first  became  important,  and  the 
accumulation  of  wealth  as  wealth,  not  only  in  flocks  and  herds, 
but  in  articles  of  luxury,  and  even  in  gold  and  silver,  began. 
In  like  manner  the  earlier  agricultural  slavery  which  arose 
as  tillage  slowly  supplemented  the  breeding  and  pasturing 
of  cattle,  sheep,  goats,  pigs,  etc.,  was  still  unaccompanied  by 
extreme  severity  in  any  of  the  countries  where  these  stages  of 
development  were  successively  attained.  The  free  peasant 
owner,  whether  European  or  Asiatic,  worked  on  the  land  with 
his  free  family,  or  in  company  with  his  slaves,  and  all  evidence 


42  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

goes  to  show  that  under  these  circumstances  hkewise  the  slaves 
were  in  close  relation  with  the  freeholder  and  his  household, 
and  were  generally  well  treated  rather  than  the  reverse. 

How  long  this  transition  period  lasted,  from  gentile  com- 
munism to  fully  developed  private  property  as  the  chief  and 
guiding  institution  of  social  life,  accompanied  by  domestic  and 
field  slavery,  we  do  not  know.  Doubtless  many  hundreds  or 
even  thousands  of  years.  However  long  the  development  may 
have  taken,  it  was  very  short  in  comparison  with  the  endless 
ages  covered  by  the  gentile  and  communist  systems.  Yet  we 
have  stone  inscriptions  which  conclusively  prove  that  highly 
organised  communities  with  private  property,  monogamy,  and 
all  the  basic  institutions  which  gave  rise  to  the  promulgation  of 
the  commandments  were  in  existence  and  flourishing  thousands 
of  years  before  Moses  brought  down  his  copy  of  injunctions 
from  Mount  Sinai. 

It  is  indeed  only  quite  recently  that  the  stupendous  epochs 
of  time  necessary  to  account  for  and  explain  man's  periods  of 
growth  have  been  understood  and  appreciated.  Though  the 
immensely  greater  portion  of  these  ages  of  the  slow  uprising 
from  ape-like  forms  and  casual  subsistence  to  the  complete 
human  being  with  some  command  over  nature,  prior  to  the 
coming  of  civilisation,  was  occupied  by  gentile  and  commun- 
istic societies,  still  the  comparatively  short  periods  embraced  by 
the  early  and  later  civilisation  founded  upon  private  property 
and  the  various  forms  of  slavery  cannot  be  estimated  at  less 
than  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years.  The  discovery  that  the 
ruins  of  great  cities  in  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Tigris  are  built  upon  many  layers  of  other  great  cities  previ- 
ously existing  on  the  same  spot  has  alone  vastly  extended  our 
conception  of  the  space  of  time  required  to  bring  our  ideas  of  the 
length  of  the  successive  stages  of  human  life  on  the  planet  into 
accordance  with  the  truth.  There  are  no  breaks  or  wide  gaps 
in  the  history  of  the  race.  The  divisions  of  the  stone  age,  the 
bronze  age,  the  iron  age,  of  the  communal  age,  the  slave  age, 
the  serf  age,  these  and  other  attempts  at  broad  and  easy  system- 
atisation  of  the  lives  of  our  remote  ancestors  lead  to  error  if 
used  as  more  than  very  rough  approximations  to  what  really 
occurred.  Each  stage  of  progress  faded  slowly  and  almost  im- 
perceptibly into  the  next  and  the  next  and  the  next.    As  man- 


DECAY  OF  THE  GENTILE  SYSTEM        43 

kind  advanced  all  the  different  layers  of  successive  development 
might  be  observed  to  be  going  on  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
This,  indeed,  though  not  so  markedly,  is  the  case  throughout 
the  world  to-day. 

Tribal  slavery,  then,  the  enslavement  of  captives  to  the 
tribe,  where  all  captives  were  the  slaves  of  all  gentiles,  was 
probably  the  first  step  towards  the  breaking  up  of  the  complete 
social  arrangements  founded  upon  the  gens  and  blood-relation- 
ship. It  introduced  into  the  tribal  and  communist  harmony  an 
incompatible  and  insoluble  element  which  was  from  the  first  at 
variance  with  the  democratic  methods  that  formerly  prevailed. 
The  economic  effect  on  the  tribe  need  not  have  been  disruptive. 
The  increase  of  comfort  for  the  gentile  members  of  the  tribe, 
assuming  that  the  slaves  produced  more  than  they  were  able  to 
consume,  would  not  have  upset  the  whole  system  nor  have 
rendered  the  continuance  of  gentile  communism  impossible. 
There  could  have  been  no  accumulation  of  wealth  for  the  purpose 
of  piling  up  a  surplus  beyond  any  actual  needs  of  the  tribe. 
Even  if  the  chiefs  by  degrees  desired  an  exceptional  share  or 
more  elaborate  surroundings  than  the  ordinary  members  of 
the  tribe,  this  would  not  necessarily  have  modified  the  gentile 
and  economic  forms.  For  as  yet  there  was  no  systematic  ex- 
change between  tribe  and  tribe,  still  less  between  individual 
owners.  Nor  was  there  much  personal  wealth  worth  inheriting. 
Each  tribe  sufficed  for  itself,  produced  for  itself,  distributed  for 
itself,  fought  for  itself,  conquered  or  was  defeated  for  itself, 
and  finally  held  slaves  for  itself. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY 

With  exchange,  however,  another  new  element  was  introduced 
into  tribal  life ;  and,  impossible  as  it  is  to  trace  actually  the 
early  influence  of  this  purely  material  and  economic  factor  in 
the  growth  of  human  society,  it  appears  almost  certain  that 
here,  following  upon  the  greater  command  by  man  of  the  power 
to  produce  wealth  for  use,  we  have  the  cause  which  induced  all 
the  other  great  changes  extending  over  centuries.  The  rudi- 
mentary forms  of  exchange  are  curious  enough.  No  serious 
attempt,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  been  made  to  tabulate  them. 
They  appear  at  first  as  a  sort  of  "permissive  grab,"  mutually 
exercised  by  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes.  A  chief,  elected  or  here- 
ditary, visiting  the  chief  of  another  friendly  tribe,  sees  some 
article,  useful  or  decorative  or  lethal,  which  he  needs  for  the 
purpose  of  his  tribe,  or,  possibly,  for  his  personal  gratification. 
This  he  asks  for  as  a  gift.  The  gift  is  by  custom  never  refused. 
At  a  later  date  the  donor  exercises  in  turn  his  right  to  com- 
mandeer, in  all  good  tribal  fellowship,  something  which,  in  like 
manner,  strikes  his  fancy,  or  is  suggested  to  him  as  a  desirable 
gift  to  ask  for  by  his  fellow-tribesmen.  As  their  wealth  grows 
and  varieties  of  produce  increase,  frequently  the  custom  of 
barter  follows.  There  is,  nevertheless,  no  money,  nor  any 
means  of  valuing  the  respective  products  which  each  desires  to 
obtain  on  some  terms  from  the  other  for  the  common  advan- 
tage of  the  two  tribes.  Pure  barter  of  this  kind  entails  a  vast 
deal  of  haggling,  but  not  necessarily  any  personal  or  private 
accumulation  of  wealth.  This,  however,  follows,  probably  in 
the  first  instance  in  the  hands  of  the  chiefs  who  conduct  the 
tribal  exchange.  One  of  the  earliest  forms  of  this  private 
property  consists  of  the  slaves  whom  the  superior  prowess  of 
the  elective  chief  in  leadership  or  courage  has  been  instru- 
mental in  capturing  for  the  tribe  in  war.     Here  would  commence 

44 


BEGINNING  OF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY     45 

the  new  element  of  absolute  ownership  in  favour  of  the  man,  the 
hero  in  war  and  outside  organiser  of  victory,  as  against  the 
woman,  the  agent  of  peace  and  the  mistress  of  the  household. 
A  revolution  in  gentilism  indeed  ! 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  practically  certain  that  in  the 
higher  stage  of  barbarism,  coincident  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere 
with  the  development  of  cattle  production,  the  growth  of  flocks 
and  herds,  and  the  discovery  of  iron,  which  slowly,  very  slowly, 
replaced  both  stone  and  bronze  for  the  supply  of  tools  and 
weapons,  the  heads  of  tribes  or  chiefs  in  war  and  in  peace 
became  wealthy  owners  of  private  property,  notably  of  slaves. 
This  property  gave,  first  to  the  tribe,  and  afterwards  to  the 
individual  who  possessed  it,  the  means  of  enjoying  much  better 
fare  than  could  be  obtained  before,  thus  strengthening  the  men 
for  war.  But  what  was  still  more  important,  the  slaves 
furnished  a  constantly  increasing  siu-plus  of  such  products  for 
exchange.  The  position  of  the  possessor,  then,  became  in  this 
way  more  and  more  dominant,  as  private  property  more  and 
more  asserted  itself  against  communal  ownership.  Inheritance 
of  this  property  became  a  serious  matter. 

The  rights  of  the  gens  and  the  agnates  on  the  female  side 
could  not  permanently  hold  their  own  against  the  closer  ties  of 
kindred,  as  they  began  to  exist  between  a  father  and  his  children. 
In  the  group  family  and  the  loosely  paired  family  women  held 
the  first  place  in  the  communal  tribe  and  household,  descent 
being  reckoned  through  the  woman  and  not  through  the  man, 
with  succession  regulated  in  the  same  sense.  But  the  strictly 
monogamous  family,  fortified  by  increase  of  wealth  and  private 
property  in  such  wealth,  transformed  and  revolutionised  the 
entire  gentile  system.  The  gens  itself  did  not  alter  its  own  con- 
stitution, except  that  the  male  section  assumed,  in  the  house- 
hold as  well  as  in  external  affairs,  the  dominant  position. 
Equality  ceased  in  the  family.  Equality  ceased  in  the  tribe. 
Democracy  and  permanent  pubhc  control  could  not  continue 
where  equality  of  condition  and  wealth  had  ceased  to  be. 
With  the  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  man  in  the  household, 
and  inheritance  through  him  to  his  children,  the  old  order  com- 
pletely changed  for  the  worse  in  regard  to  the  status  of  woman. 
She,  in  the  course  of  time,  either  by  bargain  or  capture,  left  her 
own  gens,  and  went,  a  strange  woman,  mto  the  strange  gens  of 


46  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

her  husband,  whose  order  became  her  order,  and  his  totems  and 
deities  her  totems  and  deities. 

The  economic  advance  under  gentiUsm,  by  way  of  enslave- 
ment, exchange  and  the  institution  of  private  property  on  a 
relatively  large  scale,  was  thus  instrumental  in  leading  up  to 
civilisation  as  we  know  it.  A  stupendous  social  revolution  !  The 
greatest,  as  already  said,  yet  known  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race.  Here  begins  the  crucial  differentiation  of  the  tribe  and 
gentile  unity  of  each  for  all  and  all  for  each  into  the  conflicting 
interests  within  the  same  so-called  community,  which  later 
produced  that  social  and  economic  anarchy  of  competition, 
antagonism  of  classes  and  oppression  of  the  majority,  alike  of 
women  and  of  men,  that  we  recognise  as  modern  civilisation. 

In  order  to  thread  our  way  out  of  the  maze  of  these  uncon- 
scious developments  we  must  rise  to  a  sufficient  height  above 
the  many  obstacles  that  the  investigator  encounters  on  the 
level  ground,  and  thus  discover  the  clue  which  leads  to  an  in- 
telligent appreciation  of  all  the  surroundings.  Even  so,  there 
is  as  yet  no  possibiUty  of  verification  at  the  critical  point. 
Nowhere  can  we  say  with  confidence  :  "  Here  gentile  society 
ceased ;  here  private  property  became  dominant ;  at  this 
juncture  sexual  relations  were  completely  modified,  and  man 
became  master  thenceforth  of  private  property  in  the  tribe 
and  of  all  that  the  tribal  arrangements  betokened."  The 
progress  of  the  family  and  its  accompanying  economic  growth 
was  continuous,  regardless  alike  of  the  general  ethic  or  the 
anterior  ideas  of  the  mass  of  the  members  of  the  tribe  and  its 
slaves,  when  enslavement  of  captives  became  the  rule. 

The  stage  of  advance  which  gave  the  clearest  evidence  of 
the  new  tendency  was  the  pastoral  period  in  Asia  and  on  the 
European  frontier  already  referred  to.  Some  have  gone  so  far 
as  to  assume  that  this  was  the  first  great  division  of  social  labour 
— namely,  the  division  of  the  cattle-breeding  and  the  pasturing 
tribes  from  the  others  on  the  same  level  of  barbarism  who  con- 
tinued to  devote  themselves  to  the  old  methods  of  production 
of  food.  It  was  much  easier  and  more  advantageous  to 
capture,  tame  and  breed  animals  than  to  hunt  them  down  and 
kill  them.  Tame  animals  increased  of  themselves,  with  little 
superintendence,  where  sufficient  pasture  already  existed  and 
the  climate  was  favourable. 


BEGINNING  OF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY     47 

Whole  tribes  of  various  men  devoted  themselves  to  this 
systematic  development  of  flocks  and  herds.  Tribal  slaves 
helped  them  to  extend  the  field  of  their  production  in  every 
sense.  They  produced  more  and  better  food  by  this  method  of 
depasturing  flocks  and  herds  than  the  other  tribesmen.  Not 
only  so,  but  they  became  possessors  of  very  different  products 
from  those  formerly  at  their  disposal.  All  the  necessaries  for  a 
higher  standard  of  life  were  growing  up  around  them.  They 
produced  abundantly  what  they  wanted  for  themselves  and  a 
considerable  surplus  which  increased  as  time  went  on.  Every- 
thing that  cattle,  sheep  and  goats  could  supply  the  more 
fortunately  placed  of  these  tribes  had  in  great  quantity,  in 
addition  to  all  the  meat  they  required,  and  more.  Skins,  wool, 
woven  goods,  milk,  cheese  and  the  like  they  could  now  exchange 
for  such  articles  as  they  desired,  without  the  slightest  risk  of 
shortage  or  hardship  for  themselves ;  therefore  barter,  which 
was  formerly  fitful,  gradually  became  systematic.  First 
through  elected  tribal  chiefs  and  then  tlirough  heads  of  house- 
holds who  developed  into  owners  of  the  flocks  and  herds  with 
slaves  as  part  of  the  private  property  at  their  disposal.  From 
this  point  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  individual  hands 
was  no  long  step.  So  habitual  did  barter  become  that  a  token 
of  exchange  was  necessary,  and  slaves  as  well  as  cattle  them- 
selves became  forms  of  money. 

Yet  the  tribal  and  gentile  relations  survived.  Though  their 
original  basis  of  tribal  communism  and  sexual  relationship  was 
completely  transformed,  the  ancient  democratic  usages  still 
persisted,  and  the  continuation  of  gentes  who  formed  the  historic 
settlements  and  cities  of  Europe  and  Asia  closely  resembled  in 
their  early  institutions  the  tribes  which  had  reached  the  same 
stage  of  development  in  the  New  World.  Though  the  more 
rigid  conclusions  have  been  modified  in  some  details,  it  is  now 
generally  admitted  that  Morgan's  explanation  of  the  growth 
and  co-ordination  of  the  gentile  institutions  in  Greece,  Rome, 
Germany  and  Europe  as  a  whole  is  correct ;  that  the  change  from 
the  matriarchal  to  the  patriarchal  family  within  the  gens 
occurred  in  similar  fashion  in  all  countries ;  that  slavery  and 
the  settlement  of  strangers  within  the  limit  of  the  purely  gentile 
communities  for  trade  and  protection  still  further  shook  the 
basis  of  the  old  gentile  system ;   that  the  gentile  famihes  for  a 


48  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

long  period  assumed  and  were  accorded  a  position  of  superiority 
over  the  other  chance  settlers  ;  and  that  the  security  of  life  and 
property  ensured  by  the  abandonment  of  the  purely  pastoral 
and  the  acceptance  of  agricultural  life,  with  a  common  rallying 
point,  finished  the  overthrow  of  the  exclusively  communal  and 
blood-relation  period  of  human  progress. 

To  all  appearance,  this  first  great  social  revolution  from 
communal  to  individual  property  and  from  matriarchal  to 
patriarchal  control  over  the  household,  the  reckoning  of 
descent  and  inheritance  of  personal  property  occurred  in  the 
course  of  ages,  without  any  resort  to  force,  or  any  organised 
opposition  within  the  gentes  themselves.  The  change  was  not 
only  slow  but  unconscious.  Neither  the  individual  nor  the 
collectivity  understood  what  was  going  on,  nor  the  effect  that 
would  be  produced.  Private  property  in  wealth,  which  had 
been  inconceivable  to  the  gentile  in  savagery  and  barbarism, 
became  now  a  part  of  the  common  social  life  of  the  time.  All 
the  ancient  aggregations  of  city  population  arose  in  the  same 
way.  Nor,  up  to  the  period  of  the  further  growth  of  private 
property,  which  dominated  the  entire  society  and  forced  on  a 
still  more  crucial  change  of  organisation,  was  there  any  marked 
difference  between  the  settlements  in  the  Old  World  and  the 
New,  or  in  the  scattered  island  communities.  Athens,  Babylon, 
Nineveh,  Corinth,  Antioch,  Rome,  Jerusalem,  Selencia, 
Ctesiphon,  Tyre,  Sidon,  Carthage,  Byzantium,  the  commercial 
cities  on  the  Mediterranean  were  all  built  up  on  gentile  origins 
similar  to  those  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  Mexico  and 
the  Inca  capital  of  Peru.  The  latter  centres  never  attained  to 
the  next  stage  of  human  culture  ;  but  the  accounts  of  Spanish 
and  native  writers  show  clearly  how  far  they  had  advanced  on 
the  road  towards  civilisation  before  invasions  destroyed  their 
natural  evolution. 

The  gathering  together  of  the  gentes  in  fortified  camps  and 
permanent  settlements  simply  strengthened  and  extended  the 
tendency  towards  the  federation  and  coalescence  of  friendly 
tribes,  already  bound  together  by  blood  ties  and  treaties. 
Though  they  had  not  as  yet  entirely  thrown  aside  their  gentile 
methods,  they  took  with  them  to  their  common  central  home 
their  private  property  in  personal  goods,  their  male  predomi- 
nance in  the  household  and  the  tribe,  their  developing  system 


BEGINNING  OF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY     49 

of  the  exchange  of  their  surplus  produce,  and  above  all  their 
slaves,  agricultural  and  domestic,  which  were  together  destined 
inevitably  to  carry  to  completion  the  fateful  revolution  con- 
ditioned by  property  and  class  antagonism  which  thenceforward 
constituted  the  history  of  the  race.  With  the  invention  and 
habitual  use  of  money  in  any  form,  whether  cowries  or  cattle, 
leather  or  iron,  accumulation  of  movable  property  in  private 
hands  was  strengthened,  and  common  ownership,  except  of 
land,  gradually  disappeared.  The  gentile  tribes  who  founded 
the  settlement  or  city  became  the  aristocracy,  the  patricians, 
the  rulers  of  the  growing  community. 

But  unity  and  brotherhood  no  longer  existed  within  the 
gentes  themselves.  There  was  an  ever-growing  rivalry  for 
personal  wealth  and  public  domination.  By  degrees  there 
gathered  around  the  original  settlers  a  large  body  of  slaves  and 
an  increasing  number  of  incomers  from  the  outside,  who  resided 
in  the  city  as  freemen,  in  order  to  obtain  greater  security  for 
their  persons  and  property  and  better  opportunities  for  carrying 
on  their  tillage,  manufacture  and  family  life.  The  wars  against 
neighbouring  settlements  became  now  purely  wars  of  plunder. 
Their  object  was  to  seize  the  wealth  and  the  women  of  the 
adjacent  community,  above  all  to  obtain  more  and  more  slaves, 
for  cultivation  and  exchange,  the  latter  becoming  the  chief 
motive,  as  the  process  of  agriculture  and  production  improved. 

Yet  the  revolution  was  still  incomplete.  Ancient  com- 
munism, ancient  gentile  customs,  gentile  relationships,  gentile 
methods  of  election  to  public  offices,  gentile  traditions  and 
control  generally  maintained  their  ground.  The  age-old  forms 
of  democratic  gentile  organisation  survived  into  the  new  period, 
to  which  they  could  not  be  conveniently  adapted.  So  little 
were  the  inhabitants  accustomed  to  restraint  from  above  that  a 
condition  not  far  removed  from  anarchy  threatened.  In  order 
to  avert  this  menace  to  the  prosperity  of  the  incipient  city,  the 
first  institution,  distinctly  anti-gentile,  yet  recognised  as 
essential  to  ensure  peaceful  progress,  appears  to  have  been  the 
establishment  of  organised  police.  But  policemen  were  even 
less  popular  then  than  they  are  now.  Settlers  who  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  old  ideas  of  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity 
as  practised  among  the  tribes  felt  it  would  be  a  degradation  to 
themselves  to  take  up  such  repressive  duties,  however  necessary 

D 


50  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

these  functionaries  had  become.  The  conservatives  of  the  time 
clung  to  the  watchwords  of  the  French  Revolution  ;  the  pro- 
gressives were  all  for  a  police.  The  police,  therefore,  was  set  on 
foot.  Still  so  deep-rooted  was  the  opposition  to  the  force  on 
the  part  of  freemen,  whether  gentiles  by  birth  or  settlers  who 
had  come  in  severed  from  any  gentile  connection,  that  in  most 
of  the  great  cities  of  antiquity  all  the  rank  and  file  of  this  new 
body  consisted  of  slaves.  Protection  of  property  was  regarded 
as  a  menial  occupation.  About  the  same  period  prostitution, 
the  inevitable  complement  of  strict  monogamy,  made  its 
appearance.     Civilisation  had  manifestly  begun. 


CHAPTER  V 

LABOUR  UNDER  COMMUNISM 

In  all  this  period  of  human  communistic  life,  based  upon  com- 
mon property  and  common  distribution,  its  unification  of  social 
interests  within  the  original  unit,  the  gens,  is  strongly  impressed 
upon  us.  It  was  impossible  to  think  outside  of  this  primal 
unity.  From  birth,  through  childhood,  youth  and  maturity, 
to  death,  the  whole  was  far  more  important  to  the  individual 
than  his  or  her  individuality.  There  was  no  possibility  of 
escape  from  collectivity  in  thought,  word  or  deed.  The  growth 
of  the  gens  and  tribe  with  the  very  slow  modification  of  its 
method  of  production  and  institutions,  overshadowed  all  mere 
individual  initiative  in  war  or  in  industry.  A  great  leader  in 
attack  on  neighbouring  tribes  was  but  the  controlled  organism 
of  the  common  force  whose  individual  credit,  great  as  it  might 
be  to  himself,  was  part  only  of  the  general  prowess  of  the  group. 
Similarly  the  ablest  inventor,  owing  all  to  his  social  surroundings 
and  begettings,  merely  contributed  of  his  individual  capacity 
(obviously  engendered  by  and  in  his  gens  and  tribe)  to  the 
general  advantage.  Each  and  every  advance  in  war  and  in 
peace  was  a  collective  gain  which  told  to  the  benefit  of  all 
members  of  the  group  without  exception.  In  participation  of 
the  results  none  was  before  or  after  other. 

Thus  throughout  the  lifetime  of  man  upon  this  planet  co- 
operation not  competition  has  been  the  rule  for  infinitely  the 
greater  portion  of  his  social  existence.  No  other  form  of 
economic  human  relations  was  conceivable.  Within  the  gens 
and  tribe  the  entire  ethic  was  a  collective  ethic.  A  table  of  laws 
based  upon  private  property  and  the  monogamous  family  would 
and  could  have  had  no  meaning  to  a  communistic  gentile  society. 
The  Ten  Commandments  were  hardly  conceivable  under  such 
conditions.  Nobody  could  understand  what  on  earth  they 
meant.  Theft  in  our  sense  would  have  been  a  subject  of 
ridicule  ;  sin  an  abstraction  outside  human  thought.     What  to 

51 


52  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

us  also  in  sexual  relations  is  immoral  or  incestuous  to  the  savage 
and  barbarian  is  quite  decently  proper.  As  already  noted, 
marriage  between  first  cousins  on  the  maternal  side  would  be 
regarded  under  gentile  rules  as  monstrous,  while  prostitution  for 
individual  advantage  would  be  an  unimaginable  infamy,  and  the 
neglect  of  the  well-being  of  children  a  communal  crime  of  the 
first  magnitude. 

Human  conceptions  for  countless  ages  were,  in  short,  com- 
pletely governed  in  pure  savagery,  in  modified  savagery  and  in 
barbarism  by  the  sentiments  and  instincts  of  the  horde,  of  the 
group,  of  the  gens,  of  the  tribe,  of  the  community,  of  the  federa- 
tion. Restrictions  were  sharp  enough,  horrors  were  terrible 
enough,  but  the  interests  of  all  restrained,  dominated  and 
directed  the  actions  of  each.  Thus  under  these  circumstances, 
when  man  has  developed  the  gentile  family,  and  has  gained 
some  slight  knowledge  of,  and  power  over,  nature,  due  to  the  long 
collective  unconscious  advance  of  social  capacity,  common  work 
for  the  common  good  of  the  fraternal  social  unit  with  which  men 
and  women  are  irrevocably  identified  is  as  natural  as  eating, 
drinking,  sleeping,  dancing  or  fighting.  There  is  nothing  what- 
ever that  is  irksome  in  such  communal  work.  Instinct  and 
reason  are  thoroughly  harmonised :  the  collective  and  in- 
dividual duty  necessarily  blend.  Work  and  overwork  for  the 
gain  of  another  is  and  must  be  unknown.  Men  and  women, 
therefore,  under  such  conditions  labour,  and  when  necessary 
labour  very  hard,  because  they  have  been  assiduously  trained 
from  their  earliest  youth  to  labour,  not  by  punishment  but  by 
continuous  example  and  agreeable  instruction.  Work  in  their 
respective  social  spheres  has  become  as  essential  a  part  of  them- 
selves as  singing,  dancing,  running  or  other  manifestations  of 
physical  health  or  well-being. 

Labour,  in  short,  is  an  inevitable  but  enjoyable  part  of  the 
communal  service — when  the  stage  of  self-support  in  and  by 
the  group  has  been  reached — a  section  of  the  communal  instinct 
of  each  gentile  in  his  gens,  of  each  tribesman  in  his  tribe.  What 
form  that  labour  may  take  for  each  individual  depends  upon  the 
plane  of  communal  culture  which  has  been  attained.  There 
can  be  no  stronger  or  more  pressing  motive  to  work  for  the 
society  in  which  all  participate  than  this  unshakable  sense  of 
communal  service.    But  where  this  sense  is  lacking  and  physical 


LABOUR  UNDER  COMMUNISM  53 

disability  or  mental  laziness  engenders  a  shirker,  then  the 
collccti\'e  pressure  on  that  shirker,  male  or  female,  becomes 
severe  indeed.  There  is  as  little  tolerance  of  useless  mouths  in 
a  human  communal  society  as  there  is  in  a  beehive.  Sharing 
in  the  product  demands  that  the  sharer  should  take  full  part  in 
producing  and  distributing  the  produce  to  be  shared.  Where 
communal  sense  of  this  fails  to  produce  its  influence,  or  where 
incapacity — as  with  invalids  and  the  aged — is  unavoidable, 
there  intolerance  of  bootless  existence  manifests  itself  in  a 
repellent  form.  Yet  as  regards  the  aged,  those  who  are  per- 
suaded to  retire  from  life  on  this  account  actually  welcome  their 
dismissal  as  a  portion  of  their  duty  to  their  fellows  of  the 
commune.  Custom  rises  superior  even  to  death.  Communal 
instinct  of  service  by  itself  is  more  powerful  than  fear  of  the  lash 
or  torture  as  an  incentive  to  work. 

Communism,  in  fact,  in  any  shape,  is  so  far  from  being  contrary 
to  human  nature  that  human  beings  have  lived  well  and  happily 
under  its  dispensations  for  countless  centuries.  It  solved 
beforehand  on  a  low  plane  many  of  the  problems  which  are 
exercising  the  greatest  minds  of  civilised  countries  to-day.  It 
shows  us  a  system  of  human  association,  in  which,  on  a  small 
scale  and  with  many  incidental  drawbacks,  due  to  the  low  stage 
of  development  then  reached,  mankind  could  co-operate  to 
common  advantage,  and  indi\'idual  and  class  antagonism  were 
imknown  within  the  limits  of  the  group.  No  difficulties  were, 
so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  experienced  in  the  organisation  of 
labour  or  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Labour  for  all  and  by  all 
was  the  foundation  of  communism  :  enjoyment  of  wealth  pro- 
duced by  and  for  all  was  its  superstructure.  General  social 
equality  was  the  rule. 

Not  until  slavery — the  collective  or  individual  mastery  of 
human  beings  without  property,  social  status  or  personal 
freedom  by  other  human  beings  who  enjoy  all  three — not  until 
after  ages  upon  ages  of  communism,  when  enslavement  of 
men  by  men  became  the  means  of  creating  and  accumulating 
surplus  wealth  for  personal  advantage,  instead  of  for  communal 
use,  did  the  conception  of  the  irksomeness  of  work,  the  in- 
feriority of  useful  labour,  and  the  necessity  for  the  scourge, 
torture,  starvation,  imprisonment  and  tlireat  of  death  to  impel 
men  and  women  to  perform  useful  social  service,  enter  the 


54  EVOIJTTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

human  mind.  Then  all  idea  of  common  work  for  the  common 
good  gradually  disappeared.  Labour  itself  became  degrading 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  neither  toil  nor  spin.  However 
humane  may  be  the  form  of  slavery,  forcible  compulsion  by 
masters  in  some  shape  is  always  in  the  background.  There  can 
})c  no  greater  social  change  than  this.  It  cuts  at  the  very  root 
of  human  solidarity.  Savages  and  barbarians  were  treacherous, 
ruthless  and  desperately  cruel  in  their  dealings  with  hostile 
tribes  ;  many  of  their  domestic  and  religious  customs  were 
revolting  to  us  in  the  highest  degree  ;  but,  within  the  limits 
of  their  respective  groups,  social  equality  and  rude  democracy 
prevailed.  Neither  is  possible  under  any  form  of  private 
property  and  slavery.  Slavery  is  the  negation  of  social  equality, 
and  the  inevitable  introduction  of  a  series  of  social  antagonisms. 

Communism  and  social  equality  are  the  indispensable  bases  of 
social  and  economic  freedom.  In  the  early  communal  gentile 
order  man  was  subject  to  no  direct  compulsion  to  work  for 
others  for  the  benefit  of  those  others ;  woman  was  free  from 
direct  economic  subjection  ;  all  members  of  the  group  or  tribe 
had  public  rights ;  the  labour  of  every  member  told  to  the 
advantage  of  every  other  member  ;  the  right  to  work  and  the 
duty  to  work  formed  a  recognised  portion  of  the  free  communal 
service ;  all  shared  the  general  common  wealth,  all  suffered 
from  the  general  common  injury  ;  if  one  section  of  the  gens  or 
tribe  underwent  privation  the  whole  group  was  undergoing 
similar  shortage ;  if  one  section  was  well  provided  with  food 
all  were  equally  free  from  want ;  each  and  all  participated  in 
common  danger,  common  defeat  and  common  victory.  The 
means  of  creating  wealth  were  small,  but  in  the  full  development 
of  communism  they  were  sufficient,  and  were  entirely  under  the 
control  of  the  members  of  the  gens  and  tribe.  Wrong  done  to 
one  member  of  a  gens  was  a  wrong  done  to  and  to  be  avenged 
by  every  member  of  the  gens.  The  religious  rites  of  each  gens, 
like  its  totem,  were  the  peculiar  property  of  the  gens  itself. 

Here,  on  a  low  plane,  was  social  unification  of  life  and 
interest  maintained  and  cherished  by  mankind,  remains  of  this 
form  of  society,  once  universal,  surviving  even  to  the  present 
day. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EARLY  CHATTEL  SLA\^  SYSTEM 

In  the  early  days  of  tribal  and  then  patriarchal  slavery,  which 
followed  upon  the  gentile  and  communal  society  of  common 
property,  close  consanguinity  and  equality  of  sexes  and  con- 
ditions, the  treatment  of  the  slaves  was  fairly  good.  But 
there  was  no  place  for  them,  they  not  having  been  absorbed  by 
adoption,  except  in  permanent  inferiority  and  almost  animal 
degradation,  within  the  society  of  that  day,  any  more  than 
there  would  have  been  for  their  conquerors  in  the  tribes  of 
the  slaves  themselves,  had  the  result  of  the  conflict  gone  the 
other  way.  The  defeated  had  forfeited  all  right  to  their  own 
existence.  Enslavement  was  accepted  on  both  sides  as  a  re- 
cognised result  of  the  fortune  of  war,  just  as  torture  and  death 
would  similarly  have  been  received.  Neither  side  could  claim 
quarter  under  any  circumstances. 

The  next  generation  of  slaves,  whose  fathers  and  mothers  had 
been  brought  into  captivity  and  bred  up  in  the  tribe,  inherited 
of  necessity  the  servdle  position  of  their  parents.  It  could  not 
be  otherwise.  There  was  no  known  form  by  which  slaves  who 
begat  children  could  secure  any  tribal  rights  for  their  offspring, 
nor  could  the  tribal  gentes  bring  them  into  their  groups.  Once 
slaves,  always  slaves,  when  war  had  decreed  their  subjugation. 
This  went  on  from  generation  to  generation.  Success  tended  to 
extend  and  stereotype  the  system.  Sudden  death  at  the  will 
of  the  captor  always  hung  over  the  slaves  in  the  earUer  stage. 
Cruelty  or  kindness  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  economic  con- 
ditions as  a  whole.  Either  was  a  mere  incident  in  the  general 
g^o^^i;h.  As  nothing  can  be  more  cruelly  indifferent  to  suffering 
than  Nature  herself,  so  no  process  can  be  more  ruthless  than  un- 
conscious economic  and  social  himian  development.  But  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe  that  tribal  slavery  was  specially  cruel 
to  the  slaves  ;  rather  the  contrary.  Such  examples  of  this 
collective  form  of  human  ser\dtude  as  still  survive  in  different 

55 


56  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

parts  of  the  world  are,  on  the  whole,  less  brutal  as  compared 
with  the  general  social  conditions  around  them  than  the  private 
ownership  which  slowly  followed. 

The  slaves  were  in  their  own  persons  free  and  independent 
tribesfolk,  though  their  product  was  owned  and  partitioned 
by  the  master  tribe  and  its  chiefs  instead  of  by  themselves. 
What  helped,  however,  to  spread  the  system  when  once  begun 
was  that,  generally  speaking,  the  tribes  owning  numerous 
slaves  had  a  greater  abundance  of  what  they  required  for 
their  own  communal  subsistence  and  welfare  than  tribes  which 
had  adhered  to  the  old  time-honoured  custom  of  immediate 
and  wholesale  immolation  of  their  enemies. 

In  this  way,  also,  the  warriors  of  the  conquering  tribe  were 
left  freer  to  qualify  themselves  for,  and  attend  to,  their  business 
of  war  than  they  were  before.  Their  slaves,  that  is  to  say,  per- 
formed with  the  women  the  bulk  of  the  productive  work,  or 
could  even  be  used  to  strengthen  the  forces  of  their  masters  for 
attack  or  defence.  In  another  direction,  likewise,  tribal  slaves 
were  convenient.  As  barter  and  exchange  made  way  slowly 
under  tribal  and  communal  social  forms,  slaves  themselves 
might  be  used,  and  were  used,  like  cattle — likewise  a  portion 
of  tribal  ownership  in  pasturing  countries — for  the  purposes  of 
facilitating  such  traffic  as  a  means  of  exchange.  Nevertheless, 
while  exchange  was  in  its  infancy  and  private  property,  except 
in  purely  personal  effects,  unknown,  there  was  as  yet  no  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  for  the  recognised  purpose  of  obtaining  more 
wealth  for  the  tribe  through  the  trade  conducted  even  by 
chiefs  elective  or  hereditary.  This  came  gradually,  at  a  later 
stage  and  under  very  different  conditions. 

Even  when  private  property  was  initiated,  and  man  was 
master  inside  as  well  as  outside  the  patriarchal  home,  slavery 
was  comparatively  mild.  The  slaves  of  the  patriarchal  house- 
hold, whether  the  general  life  was  pastoral  or  agricultural, 
formed  part  of  the  polygamous  or  monogamous  family,  their 
relations  to  its  various  members  being  of  a  personal  and  not  of 
a  harsh,  pecuniary  character.  Slaves  aided  their  masters  and 
their  womenkind  in  the  depasturing  and  care  of  the  flocks  and 
herds,  performed  the  various  duties  in  connection  with  removal 
from  one  camping  ground  to  another,  as  well  as  in  preparing 
the  various  articles  required  for  use,  the  surplus  of  which  came 


THE  EARLY  CHATTEL  SLAVE  SYSTEM   57 

by  degrees  into  habitual  exchange.  Similarly,  the  earliest  agri- 
cultural slavery,  which  came  into  play  for  the  indi\'idual  owner 
of  prixate  property  in  land,  and  grew  as  tillage  replaced  and 
supplemented  the  pastoral  life  of  breeding  and  feeding  cattle, 
sheep,  goats,  pigs,  etc.,  was  not  accompanied  by  excessive 
severity  in  the  countries  where  these  stages  of  development 
were  successively  attained.  It  was  production  for  immediate 
use  of  the  producers  and  their  neighbours ;  and  there  was  still 
no  economic  motive  for  overwork  or  maltreatment  of  the 
slaves* 

How  long  this  transitional  period  of  collective  and  then  of 
personal  family  slavery  lasted  in  the  various  countries  where 
this  social  evolution  went  forward  at  different  epochs  it  is  im- 
possible to  say.  But  here  again,  as  with  the  existence  of  com- 
munism itself,  we  have  to  revise  all  the  old-world  notions  as  to 
the  length  of  time  needed  to  proceed  from  one  stage  of  human 
development  to  another,  even  where  the  changing  forms  seem  to 
betoken  the  certainty  of  forcible  overthrows — of  which,  Avithin 
the  respective  societies  themselves,  there  was  and  is  little  or  no 
evidence.  Thus  the  transformation  of  the  purely  "  democratic  " 
communism  of  the  horde  and  the  gens  was  not  altered,  in  so  far 
as  its  internal  economic  and  property  relations  were  concerned, 
by  the  election  of  chiefs  to  preside  over  the  tribe  of  which  the 
various  gentes  formed  parts,  or  even  over  the  federations  into 
which  the  tribes  were  combined.  These  chosen  rulers  of  the 
small  consanguineous  republics  were,  to  begin  with,  no  more 
than  first  among  their  equals,  appointed  temporarily  or  for  life 
to  carry  on  the  functions  of  these  communities,  in  peace  and  in 
war,  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  members.  There  was  originally 
no  sanctity  in  their  office  and  no  hereditary  claim  of  their  sons 
to  enjoy  the  succession. 

Wlien,  however,  such  leadership  and  chieftainship  did 
become  hereditary,  and  families  connected  with  the  chief  were 
recognised  as  superiors,  then  not  only  did  equal  temporary 
leadership  merge  into  first  an  accepted  and  then  practically 
an  imposed  authority,  but  the  power  of  the  chiefs  over  the 
slaves  of  the  community  expanded  into  something  which  was 
not  far  from  absolute  possession.  Then  also  the  trading 
away  of  slaves  and  women  had  previously  been,  in  the  early 
days  of  undeveloped  exchange,  a  wholly  collective  bargaining 


58  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

for  collective  advantage  (though  the  actual  business  was  done 
by  the  chiefs  individually) ;  it  now  became  a  portion  of  the 
transactions  of  the  chiefs  themselves.  Thus  the  slaves  of 
the  tribe  came  to  be  chiefly  the  slaves  of  the  head  men  of  the 
tribe.  They  were,  in  fact,  the  first  herds  of  beasts  who  formed 
the  private  property  of  their  superior  fellow-humans ;  just  as  in 
pastoral  districts  cattle,  sheep,  pigs,  etc.,  followed  on  the  same 
line  and,  like  the  slaves  themselves,  came  to  be  used  as  means 
of  exchange.  At  the  same  time,  therefore,  that  collective 
and  afterwards  chiefdom  slavery  grew,  private  property  and 
individual  ownership  was  developing. 

Personal  property,  at  first  entirely  confined  to  weapons, 
clothing,  tools  and  decorations,  which  at  death  devolved  upon 
the  gens  of  the  deceased  as  communal  heritage,  extended  not 
only  to  flocks  and  herds  where  these  existed,  or  to  other  tame 
creatures  such  as  turkeys,  geese,  pigs  and  so  on,  but  to  the  pro- 
duce of  the  soil,  and  eventually,  but  much  more  slowly,  to  the 
soil  itself.  Hence  with  slavery,  even  in  its  wildest  form,  and 
with  private  property  in  its  least  objectionable  shape,  the 
whole  structure  of  human  society  was  completely  transformed. 
The  motive  force,  the  psychological  and  ethical  and  sexual 
relations  were  revolutionised.  Man  being  supreme,  and  woman 
far  more  at  his  disposal  than  she  was  in  the  communal  days, 
regarded  not  only  the  property  and  the  household  as  his,  but 
his  male  children  as  the  heirs  of  the  goods  he  had  acquired 
absolute  title  to,  including  the  slaves  who  worked  for  the  benefit 
of  himself  and  his  family,  or  were  parted  with  in  return  for  other 
things  he  might  need.  Nevertheless  these  slaveowners  and  pri- 
vate property  holders  were  still  in  the  period  of  what  economists 
call  natural  production.  Their  main  object,  that  is  to  say,  was 
to  supply  the  needs  and  desires  of  their  own  families  with  the 
articles  which  they  themselves  were  able  to  produce.  What 
things  they  required  that  were  obtainable  from  without  they 
received  by  way  of  barter,  in  return  for  the  surplus  of  their  own 
stocks.  Families  might  thus  be  living  together  as  portions  of 
a  collection  of  families,  still  connected  by  the  old  gentile  ties, 
under  patriarchal  leadership  and  control,  enjoying  considerable 
comfort.  But  this  phase  of  sound  growth,  with  its  attendant 
slavery,  might  and  did  go  on  for  long  periods  without  the 
exchange  of  their  superfluity  affecting  the  general  economic  and 


THE  EART.Y  CHATTEL  SLAVE  SYSTEM   59 

social  relations.  Not  until  slaves  became  mere  human  beasts, 
no  longer  for  food  but  for  creating  wealth,  or  rather  living  tools, 
easily  and  cheaply  replaced  when  worn  out,  did  slavery  by 
degrees  assume  the  dominant  social  form  of  production.  Then 
powerful  aggregations  of  tribes  went  forth  to  conquer  their 
neighbours  for  the  sake  of  enslaving  them,  just  as  their  ancestors 
had  pursued  the  like  course  for  the  purpose  of  devouring  them. 

Slavery,  in  fact,  both  tribal  and  familial,  did  not  become 
directly  and  personally  cruel,  or  actuated  by  mere  greed,  until 
individual  accumulation  of  wealth  became  the  guiding  motive ; 
or  until,  thereafter,  theocratic  monarchy  developed  into  great 
states.  Early  slavery  in  agriculture,  where  the  small  land- 
owner cultivated  his  own  soil  side  by  side  with  his  slaves,  was 
not  as  a  rule  harsh  in  its  effect  on  the  slave.  This  slave,  born 
on  the  holding,  and  bred  into  subservience  to  the  tribe,  the 
gentile  family,  or  the  small  cultivator,  not  having  known  free- 
dom, like  his  successors  bom  out  of  due  time  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  had  no  keener  sense  of  his  personal  degradation 
and  inferiority  than  the  bulk  of  the  wage  slaves  have  of  their 
position  in  our  society  of  to-day.  They  were  accustomed  to 
it :  they  could  scarcely  think  out  of  it.  So  only  outrageous  mis- 
usage  by  their  masters  could  drive  them,  not  into  conscious  class 
revolts,  but  into  individual  or  collective  vengeance  for  wrong 
done.  It  is  this  sense  of  social  permanence,  by  birth  and  train- 
ing in  their  conception  of  life,  which  accounts  in  a  way  for 
the  quiet  acceptance  of  what  seem  to  us  unendurable  human 
\sTongs,  even  though  precisely  similar  wrongs,  undergone  in  a 
different  way,  pass  unnoticed  all  round  us. 

Writers  on  slavery  still  commonly  assume  that  it  was  essen- 
tial for  a  small  minority  of  men  to  have  absolute  control  over 
a  much  larger  number  of  their  fellows  in  the  early  days  of 
human  society.  Otherwise  mankind  as  a  whole  could  have 
made  no  progress  from  primitive  hordes  and  general  savagery 
onwards.  Thus,  according  to  this  view,  chattel  slavery  was 
from  the  first  inevitable,  in  order  to  compel  men  to  work  for  the 
advantage  of  humanity.    No  slavery,  no  organised  society. 

M.  Wallon,  who  pubUshed  his  exhaustive  work  on  chattel 
slavery  nearly  eighty  years  ago,  opens  his  first  volimie  with  the 
following  sentence : — "  Slavery  was  the  foundation  of  ancient 
society  and,  however  far  we  go  back  to  the  origin  of  peoples, 


60  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

we  find  some  form  of  servitude  amoiijT  the  elements  of  tlieir 
eivilisation."  Such  complete  misapprehension  and  misre- 
presentation was,  perhaps,  excusable  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  though  even  then  the  truth  was  known  to 
thorough  students  of  sociology.  But  there  are  still  scholarly 
writers  who  take  this  for  granted  in  leading  works  of  reference, 
nearly  three  generations  later.  Such  a  view,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  quite  incorrect.  The  domination  of  men  by  men  was  wholly 
unnecessary  in  order  to  induce  groups  of  human  beings  to  work 
together  for  the  joint  benefit  of  all ;  nor  did  this  communal 
life  prevent  inventions  and  discoveries  of  a  most  remarkable 
character  from  being  made. 

Permanent  enslavement  had  its  origin  in  the  capture  of  large 
masses  of  men,  women  and  children  in  war.  Defeat  in  battle 
gave  slavery  its  ethical  basis,  and  no  further  sanction  was 
needed.  That  the  slaveowners  of  to-day  might,  by  a  turn  of 
the  wheel  of  fortune,  become  the  slaves  of  the  same  people 
whom  they  had  conquered  previously,  cast  no  doubt  upon  the 
sanction  given  to  successful  force.  There  was  no  appeal  from 
the  decision  of  war,  except  by  an  endeavour  to  upset  it  by 
another  war. 

The  great  civilisations  of  antiquity,  civic  and  theocratic, 
w^ere  built  up  on  chattel  slavery,  instituted  by  enslavement  of 
captives  from  hostile  societies.  But  there  were  apparent  ex- 
ceptions to  the  general  law  of  growth,  vigour  and  decay  under 
the  slave  system.  With  the  breakdown  of  slavery  the  empires 
dependent  upon  this  form  of  production  inevitably  fell.  Yet  a 
short  survey  of  the  history  of  China  shows  that  this  has  not 
been  the  case  with  infinitely  the  most  ancient  civilisation  in 
existence.  Small  landownership  and  skilled  artisanship  have 
there  held  their  own  for  thousands  of  years,  against  any  form  of 
slavery  or  serfdom,  as  the  main  basis  of  Chinese  society.  Neither 
can  it  be  alleged  that  slavery  among  the  Jews  took  the  shape 
either  of  permanence  of  caste  domination  or  the  unbroken 
rigour  of  private  personal  ownership.  Slaves  in  Judea  were 
supposed  to  be  manumitted  by  law  after  seven  years'  continuous 
service,  and  all  slaves  were  emancipated  definitely  once  in 
every  fifty-year  period.  Obviously,  laws  which  enjoined  such 
rapid  release  from  personal  ownership  for  slaves  were  not 
enacted  by  rulers  or  accepted  by  a  people  who  believed  in 


THE  EARLY  CHATTEL  SLAVE  SYSTEM   61 

the  inevitable  economic  necessity  of  slavery ;  although  the 
forms  of  production  and  distribution  remained  nearly  the 
same  from  time  immemorial.  However  much  the  statutes  in 
favour  of  slaves  may  have  been  evaded — and  the  strong  de- 
nunciation by  Jewish  priests  and  legislators  of  serious  mal- 
practices in  the  matter  shows  that  they  were  frequently  broken 
— the  fact  remains  that  among  the  Hebrews,  likewise  at  the 
height  of  their  power,  slavery  was  not  at  all  regarded  as  an 
indispensable  social  and  economic  institution ;  although  they 
had  full  experience  of  its  advantages  and  disadvantages  under 
the  same  methods  of  production  that  prevailed  before  and  after 
its  commencement. 

In  the  great  Asiatic  empires  and  Egypt,  with  their  theo- 
cratic monarchies  and  powerful  priesthood,  slavery,  both  public 
and  personal,  became  part  of  the  religious  system,  though  it 
existed  side  by  side  with  independent  private  property  in  land 
and  cultivation  by  freeholders  and  leaseholders,  as  shown  in 
ancient  records  discovered  in  the  great  cities  of  Assyria  and 
Babylonia.  Under  the  caste  system,  where  that  was  stereo- 
typed by  religious  enactment  and  custom,  the  relation  of  the 
slaves  to  the  higher  castes,  and  especially  to  the  priestly  caste, 
was  one  of  unreheved  degradation.  By  this  system  immense 
public  works  were  constructed  and  vast  wealth  was  accumu- 
lated. As  measured  by  the  standards  of  antiquity,  Babylon, 
Assyria,  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  Persia  were  the  seats  of  wealthy 
empires. 

In  Europe  similar  results  were  achieved  by  slave  labour.  It 
was  chiefly  by  the  labour  of  slaves  that  the  West,  the  East,  the 
South  piled  up  those  great  riches  which  were  seized  by  the 
Romans  and  transferred  to  Rome.  While,  therefore,  slavery 
was  not  indispensable  in  ancient  times  for  the  creation  of  well- 
being,  it  is  nevertheless  certain  that  its  universality,  at  a  given 
stage  of  progress,  proves  that  the  institution  was  essential  to 
the  development  of  Mediterranean  civilisation.  And  large 
numbers  of  slaves  could  only  be  obtained  by  conquest.  Slavery 
on  the  scale  needed  could  not  safely  be  imposed  upon  even 
nominally  free  citizens,  however  inferior  their  economic  position 
might  be,  and  no  matter  how  completely  the  position  of  the 
ruler  was  fortified  by  accepted  religions.  One  of  the  most 
powerful  and  able  of  the  rulers  of  Egypt  compelled  his  own  free 


62  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

people  to  construct  with  infinite  toil  a  vast  and  practically 
indestructible  monument  to  himself  for  his  own  permanent 
glorification.  But  this  waste  of  their  labour  roused  even  the 
passive  and  long-enduring  Egyptians  to  such  furious  discontent 
that  his  successors  found  it  more  convenient,  as  well  as  less 
dangerous,  to  obtain  the  necessary  man-power  for  similar  boot- 
less constructions  by  successful  wars,  and  the  consequent  im- 
portation of  vast  numbers  of  slaves  from  without.  Organised 
slave  raids  of  this  character  formed  part  of  the  foreign  policy  of 
all  the  slave  monarchies.  This  was  not  always  the  acknow- 
ledged object  of  their  wars,  which  were  sometimes  carried  on 
for  the  more  obvious  ends  of  direct  plunder  of  riches  already 
accumulated,  or  for  the  humbling  of  a  rival  potentate  whose 
ascendancy  was  obnoxious  to  the  attacking  ruler.  But  this 
economic  and  social  motive  had  increasing  influence,  as  is 
evidenced  by  the  importance  attached  on  the  monuments  to 
the  numbers  of  slaves  marshalled  behind  the  war  chariot  of  the 
conquerors,  in  these  records  of  their  triumphs.  Slavery  re- 
quired a  constant  supply  of  slaves  from  without  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  system  within.  Home  breeding  rarely,  if  ever, 
sufficed  to  meet  the  demand  for  more  slaves  to  replace  those 
lost  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  slave  life. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SLAVERY  IN  GREECE 

There  is  no  accurate  record  of  the  development  from  tribal, 
chiefdom  and  patriarchal  slavery  to  the  period  of  complete 
chattel  slavery.  The  nearest  approach  to  such  a  record  is  in  the 
case  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Here  again,  as  in  the  instance  of  the 
duration  of  communism,  of  the  change  from  matriarchal  to 
paternal  descent,  of  the  growth  of  the  institution  of  private 
property  and  the  transformation  from  the  gentile  society  to  the 
citizen  polity  and  state — from  societas  to  civitas — the  length  of 
time  occupied  was  probably  far  greater  than  is  as  yet  generally 
recognised.  It  was  accompanied  in  each  country  where  the  full 
evolution  was  accomplished  by  the  simultaneous  growth  of 
exchange  as  an  economic  factor,  until  the  power  of  that  im- 
personal and  for  centuries  wholly  uncomprehended  agent  of 
accumulative  and  individual  tyranny,  money,  overshadowed  all 
else,  and  led,  in  state  after  state,  to  genuine  social  revolution. 
Moneylending,  usury,  mortgages,  commerce,  production  and 
mining  for  profit,  with  the  ever-magnified  strength  of  the 
merchant,  helped  to  extend  the  sphere  of  slavery,  and  to  put 
the  slaves  quite  outside  the  category  of  independent  human 
beings.  Capture  in  war  universally  obliterated  freedom  for  the 
captives  save  in  those  exceptional  cases  where  ransom  was  per- 
mitted and  taken  advantage  of.  There  was  no  evading  this 
recognised  rule.  Might,  as  already  said,  constituted  ethical 
right,  not  only  in  Asia  and  Africa,  but  among  the  most  capable 
and  cultured  peoples  of  Europe.  Debt  acted  in  the  same  way 
as  the  agent  of  slavery  at  home. 

For  centuries  before  the  complete  organisation  of  slavery  the 
free  farmers  on  the  land  and  the  freemen  workers  in  the  cities 
carried  on  their  employment,  and  constituted  their  trade  com- 
binations outside  the  slave  system  which  was  slowly  growing  up. 
As  in  Attica  and  other  city  states,  the  power  of  usury  went 
hand  in  hand  with  the  development  of  slavery.     The  farmer  on 

63 


64  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

the  land,  or  the  workman  and  trader  of  the  city  who  fell  into  the 
grip  of  the  usurer,  was  in  the  long  run  forced  by  his  relentless 
creditor  into  the  ranks  of  the  slaves  as  the  last  means  of  paying 
his  debt.  But  this  was  a  slow  process  of  increase  in  the  home 
production  of  slaves,  slower  even  than  the  domestic  reproduction 
of  the  slaves  themselves. 

For  domestic  and  farm  slavery  the  slave's  condition  was 
precarious  enough,  yet  the  relations  between  master  and  bonds- 
man were  at  least  human.  But  work  in  mines  was,  during 
the  whole  slave  period,  the  worst  fate  that  could  befall  a  man. 
There  was  no  personal  relation,  nor  any  touch  of  humanity  in 
it.  Brought  directly  into  contact  with  the  compelling  motive 
of  immediately  realising  production  for  profit,  the  life  of  the 
slaves  in  the  gold  and  copper,  and  later  in  the  silver,  mines  was 
one  perpetual  routine  of  slow  torture.  This  applies  not  only  to 
the  slave  labour  in  the  mines  of  Greece,  Sicily  and  Egypt,  but 
likewise  to  the  mines  worked  by  the  Carthaginians  and  after- 
wards by  the  Romans  in  Spain,  in  Gaul  and  other  countries. 
The  slave  miner  was  the  soulless,  material  instrument  for 
wealth  production  in  fact,  which  philosophers  and  jurists 
declared  him  to  be  in  theory.  In  the  hey-day  of  the  slave 
system,  when  slaves  could  be  easily  and  cheaply  obtained  by 
capture  in  war,  by  piracy  in  peace,  or  by  the  selling  into  slavery 
of  debtors  by  the  usurer,  the  life  of  the  slave  was  of  no  account. 
The  calculation  simply  was,  how  much  gold  or  silver  he  could  be 
forced  by  repeated  floggings  to  obtain  before  utterly  exhausted 
human  nature  relieved  his  sufferings  by  death. 

The  quantity  of  treasure  thus  gained  was  enormous.  In  one 
district  alone  in  Spain  at  a  late  period  40,000  slaves  were  con- 
tinuously employed;  and  probably  Hannibal's  army  in  Italy 
was  to  a  large  extent  supported  by  the  produce  of  his  rich 
silver  mines  near  Saguntimi  which  have  never  been  redis- 
covered. All  these  mines,  and  the  mines  in  Gaul  as  well, 
after  the  Roman  conquest  of  that  province,  were  steadily 
worked  with  the  same  ruthless  disregard  for  human  life  and 
hiunan  suffering.  It  was  a  pure  matter  of  calculation.  If  more 
gold  could  be  won  at  less  cost  by  working  men  to  death  under 
the  lash  than  in  any  other  way,  then  that  method  was  at  once 
adopted  and  persistently  applied.  This  was  the  system  in  use 
at  Laurium  at  the  time  of  the  successful  rising.    But  though 


SLAVERY  IN  GREECE  65 

the  slaves  were  victorious  for  the  moment,  that  did  not  suffice 
to  change  the  metiiods  of  working  in  the  long  run  or  to  ensure 
more  humane  treatment.  Thus  the  general  conception  of  Greek 
and  particularly  Athenian  mildness  in  relation  to  slavery  is 
quite  a  misconception.  The  great  slave  market  at  Delos,  where 
ancient  writers  tell  us  that  arrangements  were  constantly 
maintained  for  offering  and  selling  as  many  as  10,000  slaves 
a  day,  was  of  com'se  a  Greek  centre  of  this  huge  trade.  The 
steady  demand  and  ready  sale  for  eunuchs  at  a  high  price  on 
this  mart  proves  also  that,  though  the  Western  Greeks  might 
not  use  these  unfortunate  appurtenances  of  polygamous 
civilisation  for  themselves,  they  were  quite  ready  to  procure 
them  for  others. 

The  ablest  of  Greek  thinkers,  Aristotle,  Zeno,  Epicurus, 
Socrates,  Plato,  could  not  even  imagine  a  state  of  society  where 
the  chattel  slavery  to  which  they  were  accustomed  would  not 
continue  as  the  foundation  of  their  civilisation,  and  the  economic 
basis  of  industry,  art,  science  and  culture  generally.  Yet  Plato 
had  been  made  a  slave  himself,  in  the  course  of  one  of  those 
changes  which  were  so  common  in  the  political  affairs  of  liis 
day.  Aristotle,  of  course,  considered  slaves  as  a  necessary  and 
permanent  portion  of  family  life.  His  speculation  as  to  the 
function  of  wholly  mythical  automatic  machinery,  whereby 
slavery  could  be  avoided,  is  drawn  from  the  conceptions  of  the 
poet  Hesiod.  At  the  disposal  of  the  deified  ironmaster,  Vulcan, 
in  his  labours  such  machinery  might  work  alone,  subject  only 
to  the  supervision  of  Vulcan  himself.  If  the  shuttle  could 
weave  of  its  own  motion,  and  the  lyre  could  play  of  itself,  then 
also  the  builder  might  need  no  artificers  nor  the  master  any 
slaves.  As  things  were,  however,  slaves  performed,  under  the 
control  of  the  master,  those  services  with  which  the  gods  alone 
could  dispense.  Slaves  were,  in  fact,  mdispensable  human 
instruments  of  production  like  other  animals.  As  a  great 
reward  for  their  good  behaviour  or  for  some  conspicuous  deed 
of  bravery  they  might  be  given  their  freedom,  and  even 
accorded  the  rights  of  citizenship.  These  entailed  the  power 
and  advantages  of  entering  the  competitive  stage  of  free- 
men, and  working  for  wages,  advantages  of  which  the 
slaves  were  by  no  means  always  inclined  to  avail  themselves, 
hesitating  to  sacrifice  the  security  of  their  dependent  position, 


66  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

with  all  its  manifold  drawbacks,  for  the  uncertainty  of  a  life 
of  liberty. 

Ai'istotle  returns  to  this  subject  of  the  inevitability  and 
the  ethical  status  of  slavery  several  tunes,  having  always, 
apparently,  on  his  conscience,  an  unexpressed,  perhaps  half- 
conscious,  doubt  as  to  whether  all  slavery  was  not  opposed 
to  "  nature."  Thus  the  human  being  who  does  not  belong  to 
himself  by  nature,  but  belongs  wholly  to  another  man,  is  a 
slave  by  nature ;  is,  therefore,  the  property  of  somebody  else, 
and  consequently  a  mere  chattel,  though  a  man  all  the  same. 
But  the  main  origin  of  this  slavery  being  capture  of  men, 
women  and  cliildren  in  and  by  war,  the  man  who  was  perhaps 
the  ablest  thinker  of  all  antiquity  found  himself,  after  all,  greatly 
puzzled  to  give  an  equitable  or  even  legal  status  for  this  same 
chattel  slavery  which  he  contended  was  not  only  inevitable,  but 
in  itself  just.  So  in  his  usual  laudable  endeavour  to  be  quite 
clear  and  precise  he  becomes,  of  course  entirely  against  his  own 
will  or  intention,  confused  and  even  contradictory,  though  he 
imputes  the  same  self-contradiction  to  others.  Some,  he  avers, 
with  whom  the  philosopher  himself  does  not  agree,  put  forward 
this  identical  plea  that  right  founded  upon  custom  justifies 
slavery  due  to  success  or  defeat  in  war.  But  then  the  war 
itself  which  led  to  this  slavery  may  have  been  unjust ;  and  it 
cannot  reasonably  be  affirmed  that  a  man  who  is  by  this  means 
imjustly  enslaved  is  consequently  a  slave  by  nature.  For  then 
men  of  the  highest  families  and  noblest  descent  might  be  made 
slaves  if  taken  prisoners  in  war  and  sold.  But  such  persons 
ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  slaves  at  all.  The  outer  barbarians, 
however — ^those  who  are  not  noble  Greeks,  that  is  to  say — stand 
on  quite  a  different  level.  There  are,  then,  some  who  are 
necessarily  slaves  and  others  who  under  any  circumstances 
never  can  be  slaves. 

So  it  all  comes  to  this  :  that  some  himian  beings  are  slaves 
and  others  are  free  men  and  women  owing  to  the  decision  of 
nature ;  that  there  are  two  different  classes  of  mankind,  the 
one,  advantageously  for  society,  destined  to  be  slaves,  the  other 
beneficially  ordained  to  be  masters ;  that  it  is  just  and  right 
that  some  should  be  under  control  and  that  others  should 
govern  as  nature  fitted  them  to  do.  In  which  case  it  is  likewise 
just  that  the  master  being  fit  to  rule  should  dominate  the  slave 


SLAVERY  IN  GREECE  67 

who  is  unfit  to  rule.  The  slave,  also,  being  under  these  con- 
ditions a  piece  of  property,  his  owner  can  use  this  his  chattel 
as  he  pleases  and  in  quite  a  different  way  from  that  which  is 
applicable  to  free  men. 

Throughout  this  strange  medley  of  inconsequent  argmnenta- 
tion  "  nature,"  it  will  be  observed,  plays  much  the  same  part 
as  that  which  was  ascribed  to  this  abstract  entity  by  certain 
superficial  philosophers  in  the  eighteenth  century,  some  two 
thousand  years  later.  Aristotle's  attempt  to  give  a  natural, 
legal,  equitable  foundation  to  human  slavery  obviously  failed 
as,  from  any  point  of  view,  it  was  bound  to  fail.  For  slavery 
had,  in  effect,  become  natural  from  man's  familiarity  with  it 
as  a  universal  institution.  When  Aristotle  discussed  its  basis 
it  had  already  grown  up  through  many,  many  centuries, 
possibly  even  thousands  of  years,  out  of  gradual  but  uncon- 
scious economic  and  social  development,  until  men's  minds 
were  completely  saturated  with  it  as  an  inevitable  outcome  of 
all  known,  or  hypothetically  traceable,  human  relations  in 
society.  With  all  his  Utopian  effort  in  his  RepubUc,  Plato,  like 
Aristotle,  could  not  think  outside  its  influence.  Slavery  had 
been,  was  and  would  be.  The  communism  of  the  past,  which 
alone  had  dispensed  with  it,  was  too  far  behind  and  too  little 
known  to  occasion  any  doubt  as  to  the  permanence  of  the 
ownersliip  of  man  by  man ;  the  communism  of  the  future  was 
too  far  ahead  for  the  most  brilliant  philosopher  to  conceive 
of  its  approach,  or  to  apprehend  the  causes  of  such  social 
reintegration  and  personal  emancipation. 

The  important  fact  for  sociology  is  that  Aristotle,  with  all  his 
power  of  thought,  of  induction,  of  hypothesis,  and  vast  capacity 
for  analysis  and  ordering  and  marshalling  of  known  facts, 
could  not  himself  imagine  or  hypothetically  construct  any  form 
of  future  society  which  would  not  rest  upon  slaves — slaves 
obtained  by  victory  in  war ;  slaves  bred  of  slaves  begotten  in 
peace  ;  and  both  condemned  to  penal  servitude  for  life,  not  by 
the  chances  of  battle,  but  by  nature.  When,  in  fact,  he  tried  to 
give  some  ethical  groundwork  to  this  his  inevitable  subjection 
of  men  to  men,  of  the  vast  majority  to  the  comparatively  small 
minority,  we  are  confronted  only  by  the  vaguest  phrases. 
The  material  and  historic  method  of  investigation  was  then 
impossible. 


68  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Still  more  remarkable,  however,  than  the  bemused  perplexity 
of  the  great  philosopher  and  jurist,  who  examined  and  recorded 
all  the  political  and  social  institutions  of  his  time,  is  the  frame 
of  mind  of  the  slaves  themselves,  even  of  those  who  were  quite 
recently  enslaved  :  free  men  but  yesterday,  meeting  in  peace 
and  fighting  in  war  their  successful  antagonists  on  terms  of 
perfect  equality :  slaves  to-day  to  conquerors  who  were 
assuredly  no  better  in  any  way  than  themselves.  They 
accepted  their  new  position,  with  resentment  no  doubt,  and 
with  hope  of  revenge  upon  the  victors  ;  but,  nevertheless,  they 
accepted  it  without  organised  revolt.  So  did  all  the  slaves 
of  Aristotle's  period.  Yet  slaves  formed  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  population  in  each  of  the  Greek  cities  at  the 
period  of  their  greatest  prosperity,  and  in  their  dependent 
territories  and  colonies  as  well. 

In  Sparta  the  proportion  of  the  slaves  was  still  greater  than 
elsewhere.  Here  the  gentile  aristocracy,  perhaps  the  most 
thoroughly  trained  and  organised  warrior  caste  of  all  the 
ancient  world,  constituted  so  petty  a  minority  of  the  people 
that  they  were  in  constant  fear  of  their  helots.  They  treated 
them  with  hideous  cruelty,  and  had  no  hesitation  in  slaughtering 
them  wholesale  under  circimistances  of  revolting  treachery  when 
they  even  imagined  that  any  chance  of  a  rising  threatened. 
The  butchery  in  cold  blood  of  2000  of  the  finest  of  these  un- 
armed slaves,  at  one  blow,  was  so  horrible  an  atrocity  that  it 
appears  to  have  shocked  the  not  very  sensitive  feelings  of  the 
other  slave-holding  minorities  in  the  Greek  States.  Yet  in 
spite  of  this  and  other  similar  tragedies,  in  spite  of  the  persistent 
miseries  of  their  daily  life,  and  their  great  superiority  of 
numbers,  there  is  no  record  of  any  successful  revolt  of  the 
helots  in  the  Spartan  community.  This  is  the  more  noteworthy 
since  a  considerable  proportion  of  their  slaves  were  trained  to 
the  use  of  arms,  and  thousands  of  them  fought  in  battle  side 
by  side  with  their  masters.  Custom,  which  limited  the  range  of 
the  philosopher's  mental  vision,  rendered  it  practically  im- 
possible for  the  slaves  to  survey  the  possibility  of  their  own 
emancipation  by  conjoint  effort. 

Similarly  in  Athens,  ^Egium,  Corinth,  Thebes,  Syracuse, 
Corcyra,  there  was  passive  acceptance  of  the  existing  state  of 
things,  notwithstanding  the  enormous  disproportion  between 


SLAVERY  IN  GREECE  69 

the  slave-owning  class,  with  the  freemen  citizens,  and  the 
slaves.  Long-continued  custom,  that  is  to  say,  here  as  in 
Sparta,  had  the  same  influence  on  the  spirit  of  the  slaves 
throughout  Greece  that  religious  ordinances,  upheld  by  super- 
natural sanction  and  perpetuated  from  generation  to  generation 
by  stereotyped  castes,  had  on  the  same  subjected  class  of  the 
slaves  of  the  Orient  and  Egypt.  This,  too,  although  when  the 
slave  period  in  Greece  was  at  its  height,  freemen  in  a  depressed 
condition  were  working  for  wages  alongside  the  slaves,  and 
there  were  besides  considerable  numbers  of  manumitted  slaves. 
But  numbers  appeared  to  give  them  no  confidence.  Such 
partial  plots  as  were  set  on  foot  were  rendered  futile  by  treachery 
among  the  slaves  themselves.  Only  in  the  mines  of  Laurium, 
where  a  wholly  atrocious  system  of  working  to  death  prevailed, 
against  which  the  victims  rose  in  a  paroxysm  of  despair,  and  in 
the  island  of  Chios,  where  the  slaves  eventually  deserted  their 
emancipator  and  went  back  to  their  servitude,  were  even 
temporarily  successful  revolts  carried  out.  In  Athens  and 
Attica  generally  this  is  the  more  remarkable,  since  not  only 
were  the  slaves,  as  elsewhere,  inamensely  preponderant  in 
numbers  to  the  extent  of  fourteen  slaves  to  one  adult  citizen, 
but  they  also  provided  from  their  ranks  the  entire  body  of 
armed  police  who  were  kept  and  paid  in  order  to  maintain 
security  of  life  and  property  in  the  interests  of  their  masters 
and  the  free  citizens.  Great  precautions  were  at  first  taken 
against  the  likelihood  of  organised  insubordination.  But  these 
measures  gradually  fell  into  abeyance,  as  it  became  evident 
that,  whether  the  slaves  were  contented  with  their  lot  or  not, 
nothing  serious  in  the  way  of  general  upheaval  need  be  appre- 
hended. 

This  quiescence  and  obedience  on  the  part  of  the  slaves  would 
have  seemed  to  us,  who  live  under  another  form  of  economic  and 
social  servitude,  almost  unintelligible,  having  regard  to  the 
circumstances  which  brought  these  men  and  their  families 
under  slavery — even  had  they  been  well  treated  and  not  greatly 
worse  off  than  the  free  citizens  who  laboured  for  wages  as 
artisans  and  the  like.  But  this  was  not  so.  Although  a  con- 
trast has  frequently  been  made  between  the  slaves  of  Greece 
and  those  of  other  countries,  more  particularly  of  Rome  and 
Egypt,  and  although  the  Greeks  were  not  so  systematically  cruel 


70  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

as  some  peoples,  their  slaves  were  nevertheless  badly  treated. 
In  ordinary  life  the  domestic,  industrial  and  even  agricultural 
slaves  may  sometimes  have  enjoyed  mildness  and  humanity, 
but  there  is  quite  enough  to  show  that  this  consideration  was 
but  skin-deep.  What  happened  to  them  if  they  were  called 
upon  to  give  evidence  in  any  court  of  law  proves  clearly 
that  slaves,  even  those  who  had  been  captured  and  enslaved 
but  recently,  and  themselves  guilty  of  no  offence  whatever, 
suffered  under  the  most  horrible  disabilities.  Their  testimony 
was  rarely  received  as  trustworthy  on  either  side,  save  after  they 
had  been  subjected  to  torture  of  the  most  excruciating  de- 
scription, rivalling  in  ingenuity  and  horror  the  worst  atrocities 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  This  was  done  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  the  noblest  of  Athenian  advocates  and  orators,  so  far  from 
raising  any  protest  against  such  legal  outrages  upon  human 
nature,  insisted  upon  their  being  carried  out  to  the  fullest  extent. 

The  whole  scheme  of  torture  was  pressed  to  the  extreme  limit 
of  what  is  conceivable.  Humane  masters  who  hesitated,  or 
refused,  to  submit  their  slaves  to  forms  of  the  "  question " 
which  must  not  only  inflict  frightful  agony  upon  the  unfortu- 
nate victims,  but  might  easily  result  in  their  physical  ruin  for 
life,  would  certainly  lose  their  case  and  incur  public  obloquy 
into  the  bargain.  Not  only  so,  but  any  litigant  who  thought 
that  slave  evidence  would  be  useful  to  him  might,  and  fre- 
quently did,  insist  upon  his  legal  right  that  slaves  belonging  to 
another  master  should  also  be  conducted  to  the  torture  chamber. 
This  was  done  if  the  party  in  the  case  who  demanded  that  such 
evidence  should  be  rendered  would  guarantee  to  pay  the  owner 
of  the  slaves  the  value  of  any  damage,  including  death,  that  his 
chattels  had  sustained  during  these  endeavours  to  elicit  the 
truth  from  them  by  intolerable  physical  suffering. 

Wlien  we  consider  all  these  undoubted  facts,  which  are 
recorded  as  taking  place  every  day,  it  is  evident  that  the 
cultured  and  elegant  Athenian  democracy  of  free  citizens  was 
as  much  imbued  with  the  very  worst  anti-human  tendencies 
of  their  time  as  any  of  the  less  civilised  nations  around  them, 
whom  they  stigmatised  as  barbarians.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
recite  the  terrible  penalties  for  small  offences  committed  by 
slaves,  when,  however  innocent  a  slave  might  be,  as  a  complete 
outsider  in  any  case,  he  was  liable  to  be  handled  in  this  manner 


SLAVERY  IN  GREECE  71 

without  redress.  It  is  all  summed  up  in  the  few  words :  no 
slave  might  give  e\adence  in  court  on  any  matter  miless  he  had 
been  thoroughly  well  tortured  beforehand.  This  was  the  view 
of  the  best  men  in  Athens,  a  view  which  was  acted  upon  to 
the  full  extent  that  was  thought  desirable,  and  as  a  matter  of 
course.     It  was  just  and  right  that  this  should  be  done. 

Knowing  well  that  this  dreadful  physical  suffering  was  what 
any  of  them  might  have  to  undergo,  at  any  moment,  if  their 
master  should  happen  to  be  dragged  into  legal  proceedings,  it 
becomes  still  more  wonderful  that  such  monstrous  injustice  did 
not  impel  the  slaves  to  take  up  arms  to  avenge  themselves,  to 
free  themselves,  or  to  die  in  the  attempt.  But  it  was  not  so. 
Cold-blooded  legal  torture,  carried  to  its  utmost  limit,  like 
frequent  severe  corporal  chastisement  in  the  homes,  or  on  the 
farms,  failed  to  rouse  the  slaves  to  break  through  the  ties  of 
usage  which  bound  their  minds  tighter  than  weights  and  chains 
confined  their  bodies.  Time  after  time  we  see  this  same  pheno- 
menon throughout  history  :  men  under  varying  forms  of  servi- 
tude disinclined  or  unable  to  combine  against  their  oppressors. 
When,  by  some  accident,  goaded  into  insurrection,  momentarily 
successful,  they  can  form  no  design  except  to  inflict  on  others  the 
tyrannous  and  degrading  system  from  which  they  had  suffered 
themselves.  What  renders  this  quiescence  and  apathy  the 
more  remarkable  in  Greece,  and  particularly  in  the  case  of 
Attica,  is  the  fact  that  the  slave-owning  minority,  gentile  and 
insurgent,  were  constantly  at  variance  among  themselves,  and 
were  like^vise  frequently  engaged  in  bitter  warfare  with  their 
rivals  outside.  Yet  the  slaves  looked  on  at  these  civil  conflicts 
and  external  campaigns  without  any  organised  endeavour  to 
take  advantage  of  the  mutual  animosities  between  their  re- 
spective masters.  Nay,  often,  as  already  noted,  they  fought 
bravely  on  either  side  in  their  masters'  cause,  when  the  same 
courage  and  devotion  and  skill  in  the  use  of  arms  might  have 
secured  their  own  emancipation,  at  the  cost  of  enslaving  others. 

Our  admiration  for  the  great  works  of  Greek  genius  too  often 
blinds  us  to  the  truth  that  Greece  with  Athens  was  herself  the 
centre  of  perhaps  the  worst  and  most  highly  developed  system 
of  commercial  conquest,  usury,  slave  raids,  piracy  and  general 
pecuniary  infamy  in  the  whole  Mediterranean  basin.  The 
same   highly  cultured  citizens  who  listened  to  and  saw  with 


72  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

cordial  appreciation  the  splendid  plays  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles 
and  Euripides,  and  enjoyed  the  brilliant  comedies  of  Aristo- 
phanes and  Menander,  not  only  treated  their  slaves  in  the 
abominable  fashion  spoken  of  above,  but  were  terribly  unscrupu- 
lous and  treacherous  in  all  their  dealings  with  other  peoples. 
The  Romans  themselves,  those  past  masters  in  the  art  of  profit- 
able conquest  and  fraudulent  rapine,  learnt  much  of  their 
financial  rascality  from  the  Greeks.  This  all  shows  that,  as 
teiTible  oppression  and  cruelty  fail  to  rouse  resistance  among 
those  accustomed  to  a  life  of  subjection,  so  the  highest  culture 
and  intelligence,  even  when  combined  with  a  lofty  ethic  among 
their  equals,  have  no  power  to  soften  or  restrain  the  brutality 
and  greed  of  a  dominant  class.  And  this  appears  to  be  the 
universal  rule  throughout  the  series  of  class  antagonisms  and 
slave  forms  which  arose  after  the  break-up  of  gentilism  and 
communism. 

Important,  however,  as  Greek  slavery  was  in  its  day,  nowhere 
can  the  development  of  chattel  slavery  be  traced  so  clearly  and 
certainly,  step  by  step,  as  in  the  Roman  Republic  and  the 
Roman  Empire.  That  is  the  reason  why  Roman  slavery,  with 
its  vast  extent  and  importance  in  the  history  of  European 
civilisation,  has  been  taken  as  typical  of  this  institution  gener- 
ally, outside  Egypt  and  Asia.  Other  great  states  of  antiquity, 
notably  Carthage,  Persia,  India,  Asia  Minor,  Assyria,  Babylon, 
based  their  prosperity  for  centuries  on  slavery ;  but  our  know- 
ledge of  their  economic  and  social  life,  even  in  the  case  of 
Egypt,  is  far  inferior  to  that  which  we  have  of  the  life  and  in- 
stitutions of  Rome.  Slavery  in  Greece,  though  in  the  main  of 
the  same  character,  and  due  to  similar  causes,  was  so  much 
smaller  in  extent  compared  to  the  populations  affected — even 
when  the  Greek  colonies  and  the  settlements  in  Asia  Minor  are 
taken  into  account — ^that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  world 
history,  it  plays  quite  a  secondary  part.  Sparta,  which  looms 
so  large  for  us  in  the  pages  of  Thucydides  and  in  the  institutions 
of  Lycurgus,  contained  but  32,000  Spartan  fighting  men ;  while 
the  estimate  that  these  overlords  had  more  than  200,000  helots 
and  120,000  semi-serfs  is  not  improbably  excessive.  With 
Rome  at  the  height  of  her  domination  we  come  to  very  different 
figures  of  population,  both  free  and  enslaved. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SLAVERY  UNDER  ROME 

Why  the  tribes  which  settled  on  the  Seven  Hills,  with  the 
refugees  and  outlaws  from  other  gentile  communities  who 
gathered  round  them,  should  have  obtained  such  complete 
economic  and  political  pre-eminence  over  all  their  rivals,  some 
of  whom  were  much  richer  and  more  powerful  than  themselves 
at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  for  supremacy,  is  one  of  the 
unexplained  riddles  of  history. 

The  groAvth  of  Rome,  from  a  rough  gentile  stronghold  which 
served  only  as  a  rallying  point  for  the  tribal  units  and  culti- 
vators, to  an  aggressive  Republic,  followed  the  same  lines  that 
the  consolidation  of  such  groups  into  a  city  pursued  elsewhere. 

First  there  was  in  one  district  a  collection  of  cattle-owners 
and  farmers,  mostly  tribal ;  then  a  number  of  small  private 
owners  combined  with  a  nucleus  of  the  original  gentile  families 
who  formed  the  aristocracy  of  the  slowly  increasing  settlement ; 
later  the  people  from  without  came  in,  who,  destitute  of  gentile 
rights,  took  advantage  of  the  security  for  person  and  property 
afforded  by  the  consolidation  for  defence  within  a  small  area. 
Thereupon  followed  inter-tribal  fights  for  territory  and  women 
wdth  other  small  groupings  of  the  like  kind  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  ;  thence  deliberate  attacks  and  trials  of  strength, 
by  which  a  supply  of  slaves  was  secured  by  the  victors  ;  later  on 
still  the  adoption  of  city,  tribal  and  yeoman  warfare  as  a  means 
of  enrichment  by  the  plunder  and  enslavement  of  less  adventur- 
ous or  less  piratical  communities.  As  a  consequence  of  the 
increase  of  wealth  came  the  division  into  antagonistic  classes 
within  the  city,  the  change  from  gentile  equaUty,  based  upon 
blood-relationship,  to  grades  of  voting  and  political  influence 
founded  upon  private  property  and  the  amount  of  such  property 
owned  by  the  voters — the  whole  of  this  progression,  in  more  or 
less  diversified  forms,  was  common  to  other  cities  and  states 
than  Rome.    But  from  the  early  days  of  the  Republic  the  policy 

73 


74  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

of  plunder  for  the  sake  of  plunder  became  the  guiding  principle 
of  Roman  action.  From  a  state  liable  to  invasion  by  its  neigh- 
bours and  in  danger  from  Gauls,  Cimbrians  and  other  hordes  still 
in  the  gentile  stage  of  social  life,  Rome  grew  gradually  into 
the  most  formidable  aggressive  power  of  antiquity.  With  the 
supremacy  over  all  Italy,  slavery  itself,  with  money,  became  an 
element  of  conquest,  urging  constantly  to  the  acquisition  of 
more  slaves.  The  wealth  acquired  from  victory  gave  an  appetite 
for  more  victory  out  of  sheer  greed  of  gain.  By  the  bitter  irony 
of  economics  the  freemen  farmers  and  artisans,  who  constituted 
the  armies  which  fought  for  the  Senate  and  the  people  of  Rome, 
effected,  as  will  be  seen,  their  o^vn  downfall  and  brought  about 
the  social  subjugation  of  those  who  survived  the  great  cam- 
paigns in  East  and  West,  by  the  very  same  triumphs  which  their 
proconsuls  and  generals  celebrated  as  the  most  glorious  achieve- 
ments of  the  Roman  Republic.  Slaves  captured  in  tens  and 
even  hundreds  of  thousands  were  inevitably  sold  cheap,  for 
the  markets  soon  became  overstocked.  Rich  gentile  and  aristo- 
cratic families  became  enormous  slave-owners.  They  purchased 
the  captives  with  the  accumulations  of  precious  metals  poured 
into  the  lap  of  the  great  families  by  their  victorious  relations, 
who  led  the  Roman  armies  and  administered  the  Romanised 
provinces  subjugated  by  their  soldiers.  Nothing  like  this 
wholesale  and  systematic  rapine  throughout  the  entire  civilised 
world  then  accessible  has  been  seen  in  history.  Unstinted 
aggression  and  plunder  abroad  was  accompanied  by  economic 
oppression  at  home ;  and  the  wealth  thus  piled  up  added  to  the 
tribute  expected,  while  the  profits  obtained  in  certain  direc- 
tions from  slave  labour  were  so  enormous  that  luxury  of  every 
kind  reached  an  unprecedented  height.  Luxury  was  accom- 
panied by  cruelty  and  sheer  blood-lust,  which  the  numbers  of 
slaves  gave  every  opportunity  for  gratifying. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  the  old  slave  system,  which  gave 
some  hope  to  the  slaves,  was  supplanted  by  the  new  slave 
relations,  which  in  practice  destroyed  for  the  most  part  any 
compensatory  personal  connection.  The  slave,  however  distin- 
guished he  might  be  by  birth,  race  and  high  qualities,  became  in 
Rome  a  human  chattel  and  nothing  more.  All  this  went  on  for 
generation  after  generation  under  the  Republic.  The  names 
blazoned  forth  in  our  histories  and  our  highest  literature  as 


SLAVERY  UNDER  ROME  75 

heroes  and  champions  of  freedom  are  precisely  those  men  who 
were  as  unsiu'passed  in  ruffianism  and  cruelty  towards  captives 
and  slaves  as  they  were  treacherous  and  unscrupulous  in  their 
dealings  with  their  own  countrymen.  Yet  these  very  same 
people,  like  the  Greeks,  never  hesitated  to  call  upon  the  slaves 
to  help  them  in  their  civil  wars,  by  promises  of  freedom  and  well- 
being  which  were  rarely  or  never  kept. 

Then  following  upon  great  campaigns  in  East  and  West  came 
a  series  of  risings  of  the  slaves,  so  persistent,  so  determined,  in 
more  than  one  instance  so  well  led,  that  even  to-day,  with  all 
the  facts  before  us,  and  looking  on  coolly  down  the  centuries 
at  the  problems  of  the  past,  we  can  only  marvel  that  the  ruth- 
less Roman  aristocrats,  with  all  their  vigour  and  self-confidence, 
threatened  by  the  Teutons  and  Cimbri  and  Mithridates  from 
without,  and  these  violent  and  partially  successful  attacks  by 
revolting  slaves  within,  should  have  succeeded  in  saving  their 
terrible  Republic  from  complete  ruin.  But  they  did.  Even  if 
they  had  won,  slavery  as  a  system  had  then  become  so  deeply 
rooted  in  Rome  and  Italy,  in  Carthage  and  the  Carthaginian 
possessions,  in  the  whole  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
East,  that  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  slaves  could 
have  established  a  society  based  upon  free  labour. 

The  Romans  shrank  from  no  sacrifice  in  their  ruthless  deter- 
mination to  crush  down  the  insurrections.  Their  aristocratic 
leaders  knew  that  if  the  slave  revolts  spread  in  Italy  or  suc- 
ceeded in  the  adjacent  provinces,  and  they  were  even  tem- 
porarily mastered  by  the  subjugated  class,  another  power  than 
their  owii  would  come  into  being,  whether  the  slaves  were 
benefited  by  the  change  or  not.  In  fact,  they  and  their  sup- 
porters would  inevitably  have  been  made  slaves  in  their  turn, 
if  they  had  escaped  from  slaughter  on  the  field  of  battle  or  from 
massacre  in  the  towais  to  which  they  fled  for  refuge.  But 
slavery  as  an  institution  would  not  have  been  abolished  by  the 
triumph  of  the  slaves. 

As  it  was,  the  successful  Roman  commanders,  after  victory 
largely  aided  by  treachery,  resorted  to  their  familiar  methods  of 
striking  terror  and  glutting  revenge.  The  defeated  slaves  were 
crucified  along  the  highways  by  tens  of  thousands.  All  the 
horrors  of  successful  Asiatic  warfare  were  re-enacted  by  the 
generals  of  the  Roman  Republic.    And  then  the  whole  move- 


76  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

ment  of  Roman  conquest,  Roman  enslavement,  Roman  tribute- 
exaction,  Roman  usury,  steadily  pursued  its  course.  Never- 
theless the  possibility  of  failure  had  stared  them  in  the  face. 
The  struggles  with  Mithridates  in  the  East,  and  the  national 
hero,  Sertorius,  in  the  West,  were  going  on  at  the  same  time  that 
the  issue  of  the  servile  wars  in  Italy  and  Sicily  was  hanging  in 
the  balance ;  and  more  than  one  of  the  armies  needed  for  the 
defence  of  the  Republic  without  were  recalled  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  dangerous  revolt  within.  But  the  victory  had 
been  achieved  before  they  arrived.  Slavery,  dominated  by  the 
Roman  legions  under  the  leadership  of  the  aristocratic  caste, 
so  fitly  represented  by  Sulla,  Cato  the  Younger,  Brutus  and 
Cicero,  became  more  than  ever  the  economic  and  social  basis  of 
Roman  life  and  power. 

Moreover,  the  irony  of  this  development,  the  unconscious 
manner  in  which  free  men  patriotically  brought  about  their  own 
ruin  and  degradation,  was  never  more  disastrously  manifested 
than  in  the  case  of  Rome's  wars  of  conquest.  It  was  the 
yeomen,  the  small  farmers,  the  cultivators  around  the  cities, 
who  formed  the  backbone  of  the  Roman  armies.  Mithridates 
and  Hannibal,  Pontus  and  Carthage,  the  great  struggle  for  in- 
dependence in  Spain,  the  invasion  of  the  Cimbri  and  Teutons, 
the  Samnite  attacks  and  the  servile  risings  spoken  of  were  all 
overcome  by  the  inflexible  courage  and  determination  of  the 
free  Roman  legionaries,  utrinque  parati,  who  fought  in  every 
part  of  the  then  known  world  under  the  banner  of  the  S.P.Q.R. 
Yet  the  steadiness  with  which  they  marched  on  to  victory,  not- 
withstanding crushing  defeats  and  even  disasters  for  years  in 
succession,  brought  in  the  long  run  nothing  but  expropriation 
and  poverty  to  the  survivors  and  their  descendants.  Their 
losses  on  the  field  of  battle  terribly  depleted  the  ranks  of  the 
stalwart  yeomen,  giving  them  less  power  to  encounter  their 
class  enemies  in  Italy.  But  above  all,  their  victories  worked 
them  harm.  These  victories  supplied  the  aristocrats  and  the 
risen  wealthy  plebeians,  of  whom  Pompey  the  Great  was  the 
most  successful  example,  with  cheap  and  capable  slaves,  who 
were  used  as  the  great  economic  and  social  weapon  to  over- 
whelm for  generations  the  small  free  farmers  and  capable  artisans 
who  had  won  the  wars  for  Rome.  The  free  cultivators  were 
driven  out  of  the  field  by  slave-worked  farms  on  a  large  scale. 


SLAVERY  UNDER  ROME  77 

This  was  most  noticeable  in  Italy,  but  it  went  on  everywhere. 
Given  the  conditions,  the  results  were  practically  inevitable  for 
the  time  being.  Everything  combined  to  defeat  the  upholders 
of  the  old  system  with  its  distribution  of  the  public  land.  No 
distinctions  were  made.  Slave-ownership,  usury,  aristocratic 
monopoly,  wholesale  bribery  and  shameless  illegality  told 
equally  against  the  descendants  of  Sulla's  magnificent  soldiery, 
planted  by  him  on  land  conquered  from  the  enemy,  and  the 
families  of  old  settlers,  whose  fathers  and  brothers  had  tri- 
umphantly upheld  the  greatness  of  the  Republic.  The  vast 
slave-cultivated  estates,  with  their  cruel  enforced  toil  and 
miserable  slave  prisons,  made  way  in  the  country  ;  the  plebeians 
and  proletariat,  for  all  their  voting  power  and  rights  to  free 
sustenance,  were  bribed,  cajoled  and  brow-beaten  out  of  their 
inheritance  in  the  city. 

The  soldiers  of  Sulla  themselves  often  found  that  the  culti- 
vation of  the  soil  was  a  privilege  of  free  citizens  which  involved 
toil  and  uncertainty  beyond  what  they  were  willing  to  midergo 
in  the  process  of  apprenticeship  to  their  business.  The  majority 
of  them  disposed  of  their  holdings,  and  were  ready  again  to  take 
pay  as  soldiers  and  participate  in  such  civil  or  foreign  wars  as 
might  be  afoot.  Wars,  in  fact,  and  the  resort  to  mercenary 
soldiery  m  order  to  wage  them  successfully  at  home  and  abroad, 
did  nearly  as  much  to  uproot  Rome's  agricultural  citizens  from 
their  holdings  as  slave-tilled  large  properties.  PajTnent  for 
military  service  was  one  of  the  great  causes  that  distracted  men 
from  their  occupation  as  cultivators,  and  brought  them  into  the 
cities,  during  the  entire  period  of  Rome's  ascendancy.  And  the 
uncertainty  of  their  freedom  may  also  have  accelerated  their 
movement  citywards.  For  the  hunting  down  of  slaves  was  not 
confined  to  warfare  on  a  large  scale,  conducted  by  the  State  in 
order  to  remedy  the  waste  occasioned  by  the  loss  of  slave  life ; 
nor  did  piracy  at  sea  and  slave  raids  along  the  coast,  carried  on 
as  a  regular  business  by  the  corsairs  who  had  become  a  formid- 
able power  in  the  Mediterranean,  finish  the  catalogues  of  danger 
to  be  incurred.  There  were  risks  at  home  :  razzias  along  the 
highways  and  their  neighbourhood,  against  which  isolated 
farmers  had  little  chance  of  being  able  to  protect  themselves, 
were  frequent.  Thus,  during  the  entire  life  of  the  Roman  slave 
system,  a  series  of  tendencies  and  causes  existed  which  resulted 


78  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

in  the  depression  of  the  free  labourer  and  the  increase  of  the 
value  of  the  slave.  These  circumstances  make  it  the  more  re- 
markable that  the  freemen  should  have  been  able  to  continue 
their  existence  at  all,  and  certainly  do  not  support  the  con- 
tention that  slave  labour  was  necessarily  unsatisfactory  to  its 
owners. 

Even  high-minded  aristocrats,  who  sympathised  with  the 
people  and  as  tribunes  obtained  the  support  of  the  plebeian 
order,  were  powerless  to  stem  the  tide  of  aggression  by  their  own 
class.  Tiberius  and  Caius  Gracchus,  who  have  come  down  to 
us  through  the  centuries  as  the  martyred  heroes  of  the  oppressed, 
despite  their  own  high  birth  and  culture  and  their  descent  from 
the  great  Scipio  Africanus,  notwithstanding  the  popularity  first 
of  the  elder  and  then  of  the  fiery  younger  brother,  were  both 
powerless  to  make  head  against  the  organised  force  of  aristo- 
cratic greed  over  against  them.  Their  laws  in  favour  of  wide 
landownership  for  the  free  farmers  were  rendered  entirely 
nugatory,  and  the  slave-owners  won  all  along  the  line  wherever 
their  own  immediate  class  and  pecuniary  interests  were  engaged. 
The  Roman  populace,  like,  indeed,  the  populace  at  nearly  all 
periods  of  history,  failed  to  support  their  champions  when  living, 
but  uselessly  glorified  them  when  dead.  Not  only  were  the 
efforts  of  the  Gracchi  to  secure  for  the  Roman  people  their  own 
public  land  abortive,  but  the  magnificent  vigour  and  eloquence 
of  Caius,  the  younger  brother,  failed  to  obtain  for  the  Italians 
rights  of  citizenship  and  voting.  The  political  power  of  both 
brothers,  though  invested  with  all  the  authority  of  tribunes  of 
the  plebs,  and  supported  by  the  great  majority  of  the  citizens, 
miscarried  for  two  reasons  :  first,  the  economic  and  social  force 
of  the  aristocratic  class  then  dominant  was  still  in  full  vigour, 
and  strengthened,  as  already  said,  by  the  success  on  the  field  of 
battle  of  the  soldiers  of  the  people ;  second,  neither  of  the 
Gracchi  had  the  support  of  the  army,  which  might  have  en- 
abled them  to  achieve  their  ends  for  the  time  being  against 
the  oligarchy.  It  was  thus  a  class  struggle  in  which  the  social 
development  and  the  military  position  were  imfavourable  to 
democratic  success. 

Showing  also  how  completely  the  general  sentiment  of  the 
time  influenced  the  actions  even  of  the  Gracchi,  whom  history 
has  always  regarded  as  aristocrats  abandoning  their  class  pre- 


SLAVERY  UNDER  ROME  79 

judices  and  sacrificing  their  lives  for  the  sake  of  justice  and 
humanity,  it  is  noteworthy  that  neither  they  nor  their  supporters, 
so  far  as  is  known,  evinced  any  desire  to  improve  the  condition 
of  the  slaves,  then  being  poured  by  the  hundred  thousand  into 
the  slave  markets  as  a  result  of  the  Roman  victories.  The 
Gracchi  recognised  the  harmful  effect  of  the  expansion  of 
Roman  domination,  and  the  overthrow  of  Carthage,  upon  the 
well-being  of  their  clients  by  their  extrusion  from  the  soil  in 
favour  of  the  great  land  and  slave  owners.  But  they  did  not 
enter  upon  a  campaign  against  the  slave  system  itself.  That 
field  lay  beyond  their  scheme  of  class  emancipation  and  political 
enfranchisement.  It  was,  indeed,  under  the  Republic  that 
slavery  reached  its  highest  point  of  development  and  cruelty. 
Cicero,  the  vehement  champion  of  the  most  odious  oligarchic 
tyranny  against  the  citizens,  when  denouncing  Verres  for  his 
malefactions  in  Sicily,  urged  as  a  serious  charge  agamst  him  that 
he  had  not  caused  a  slave  to  be  crucified  for  a  very  minor 
offence  !  The  Gracchi,  the  forermmers  of  Clodius,  Catiline  and 
Caesar,  made  no  stand  against  the  prevailing  barbarity  towards 
captives  sold  into  slavery.  They  only  attempted  to  democratise 
institutions  for  their  free  clients. 

It  is  particularly  remarkable  that,  during  the  whole  of  this 
period  of  the  constant  rise  of  slavery  as  an  economic  and  social 
force,  the  labour  of  free  men  still  held  a  certain  position  in  com- 
petition with  that  of  slaves,  a  position  which  became  stronger 
rather  than  weaker  as  time  went  on.  Slavery  was  the  backbone 
of  the  Roman  Republic  as  it  was  of  the  Carthaginian  State. 
Yet  in  Rome,  as  in  Carthage,  the  work  of  freemen  went  on  side 
by  side  with  the  labour  of  slaves;  and  the  Carthaginians,  strange 
to  say,  at  the  period  of  their  most  desperate  struggle  with  Rome, 
encouraged  free  settlement  on  the  soil  more  than  the  Romans 
did. 

The  question  of  the  profitable  or  miprofitable  nature  of  slave 
cultivation  or  slave  production  for  commercial  purposes,  as  at 
Alexandria  and  other  manufacturing  centres,  would,  therefore, 
seem  to  be  dependent  on  the  following  considerations  : — 

1.  The  cheap  cost  of  the  slaves  originally  by  purchase  of 
captives  in  war. 

2.  The  possibility  of  their  cheap  replacement  by  further 
piu-chase  of  captives. 


80  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

3.  Similar  possibility  of  cheap  reproduction  by  breeding. 

4.  Their  organisation  according  to  the  best  methods  (a)  of 
cultivation  on  the  land,  (b)  of  production  in  the  cities. 

5.  Alternation  of  work  on  land  for  food  production  during 
the  open  months  and  on  manufacture  of  articles  of  primal  utility 
in  slave  workshops  during  the  winter. 

6.  Cost  of  their  keep  and  superintendence. 

Throughout,  the  most  important  factor,  assuming  the  best 
possible  arrangements  to  be  made  in  other  respects,  was  the 
certitude  of  the  acquisition  of  cheap,  capable  slave  labour  by 
purchase,  due  to  the  superabundance  of  captives  owing  to  suc- 
cessful wars  of  conquest.  So  much  was  this  the  case  in  the 
flourishing  days  of  Rome  as  a  slave  power,  that  it  has  been 
suggested  that  the  crushing  defeat  of  Varus  and  his  legions  in 
the  forests  of  Germany,  and  the  failure  of  Rome  thereafter  to 
suppress  the  German  tribes  or  to  discover  any  great  fresh  re- 
cruiting ground  for  forcible  enslavement,  was  the  first  manifest 
step  in  the  decadence  of  the  main  economic  and  social  prop  of 
Roman  greatness.  However  this  may  be,  even  the  magnificence 
of  Rome  in  its  palmy  days  and  the  marvellous  development  of 
her  organised  vampirism  were  but  stupendous  superstructions 
erected  upon  a  very  unstable  and  treacherous  economic 
foundation. 

But  in  the  life  of  Rome  itself,  and  indeed  throughout  the 
conquered  territories,  the  free  labourers  and  artisans  formed 
combinations,  trade  unions  and  "  colleges  "  which  were  able 
in  some  degree  to  uphold  the  status  of  those  who  belonged  to 
them  during  the  height  of  the  slave  period.  These  combina- 
tions of  free  citizens,  strengthened  and  buttressed,  as  it  were,  by 
the  freed  men  rising  from  the  slave  class  and  the  free  servants 
of  the  Republic  and  Empire — who,  though  not  in  any  way  con- 
nected with  them,  constituted  an  independent  body — ^were  at 
times  looked  upon  as  dangerous,  even  in  the  days  of  the  emperors. 
This  appears,  not  only  from  general  observation  but  also  from 
the  remarks  of  so  capable  and  wide-minded  a  ruler  as  Trajan, 
in  his  letter  to  Pliny  on  the  organisation  of  a  very  small  group 
of  artisans  in  the  capital  of  Bithynia.  There  was  thus  an  inter- 
mediate body  of  free  workers,  outside  the  subsidised  and  freely 
fed  Roman  plebs  and  the  slaves  in  the  great  city  itself,  as  well 
as  in  the  other  cities  of  the  Republic  and  Empire,  which 


SLAVERY  UNDER  ROME  81 

remained  in  existence  and  gradually  increased  in  numbers  and 
power,  preparing  the  way  quite  unconsciously  through  the 
centuries  for  other  forms  of  class  relations.  The  coloni,  also, 
who  were  mostly  settlers  on  the  land  from  the  army  in  Italy  and 
elsewhere,  did  not  give  way  entirely  to  the  slave  cultivation, 
with  its  accompanying  usury  and  economic  expropriation  or 
enslavement  of  the  small  proprietors.  They  too  fought  what 
was  in  their  case  a  desperately  uphill  fight  against  the  prevailing 
economic  system,  whose  full  social  effect  was  not  observed  until 
many  generations  later. 

But  the  ideas  of  slavery  dominated  every  class  of  society  in 
public,  as  its  influence  insidiously  corrupted  private  life.  Thus 
labour  in  any  shape  on  the  land  or  in  crafts,  which  had  formed 
the  groundwork  and  had  created  the  strength  of  Rome  in  its 
early  days,  fell  into  disrepute,  and  was  regarded  as  a  degrading 
occupation  for  citizens  and  free  men.  This  conception  spread 
from  tribute-supported  and  luxury-debased  Rome  to  the 
provinces,  which  had  been  plundered  by  conquest  and  drained 
by  taxation.  Such  a  rush  of  ill-gotten  wealth  had  never  flowed 
into  any  great  city  as  that  which  poured  upon  Rome  after  the 
successful  campaigns  against  Mithridates,  Carthage,  Egypt, 
Gaul,  Greece  and  Spain.  The  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  whole  civilised  world  then  known  lay  at  the  mercy  of  this 
huge  octopus  of  exploiters  and  usurers.  For  from  the  stand- 
point of  human  industry  and  social  well-being  such  was  the 
city  of  the  oligarchic  Roman  Republic  in  its  palmy  days. 
Economically  speaking,  the  city  gave  nothing  to  the  world. 
There  was  not  even  a  pretence  of  economic  return  for  tribute 
extorted  and  taxation  levied.  Following  in  the  wake  of  the 
conquering  Roman  armies  went  a  mass  of  speculators,  usurers, 
land  appropriators,  slave-buyers,  who  absorbed  by  money 
dealings  such  booty  and  wealth  as  the  soldiery  had  left.  They 
were  still  more  hated,  and  were  the  cause  of  more  revolts  than 
the  legionaries  themselves. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SLAVE  REVOLTS 

During  the  whole  of  the  early  period  of  Roman  slavery  the 
Romans,  like  the  Greeks  and  the  Carthaginians,  lived  in  con- 
stant fear  of  the  uprising  of  their  slaves.  It  was  this  perpetual 
dread  which  inspired  the  cruelty  with  which  they  were  treated 
in  times  of  peace,  and  the  terrible  punishments  inflicted  upon 
them  when  they  failed  in  war.  The  disproportion  in  numbers 
between  the  slaves  and  the  Roman  citizens  increased  this  feeling 
of  suppressed  panic  when,  during  the  whole  period  of  Rome's 
great  advance  in  power  and  her  perpetual  conquests,  slaves, 
like  other  wealth,  were  poured  in  upon  the  Republic  from  all 
quarters,  and  were  distributed  in  all  the  previously  conquered 
provinces.  It  is  tolerably  certain,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the 
manner  in  which  the  histories  of  the  great  revolts  were  eviscer- 
ated and  the  official  records  suppressed,  that  organised  risings 
on  a  smaller  scale,  and  the  destruction  of  separate  masters  who 
distinguished  themselves  for  their  inhumanity,  with  their  families, 
were  much  more  common  than  is  generally  admitted  by  Roman 
writers.  The  law  or  custom  that  all  the  slaves  belonging  to  an 
owner  who  had  been  killed  by  one  of  them  should  be  put  to 
death,  and  the  entire  legislation  enacted  to  strike  terror  into 
slaves  and  even  freed  men,  showed  that  the  dominant  class  had 
no  doubt  as  to  the  possibility  of  sudden  outbursts,  accompanied 
by  indiscriminate  massacre,  which  lay  all  round  them.  By  a 
careful  selection  in  the  appointment  of  the  slaves,  so  that  no  large 
bodies  of  men  coming  originally  from  the  same  districts  might 
be  gathered  together,  by  a  constant  use  of  spies  when  any 
organised  disaffection  was  anticipated,  by  the  prevention 
ordinarily  of  any  access  to  supplies  of  arms,  and  by  the  prompt 
imprisonment  or  removal  of  slaves  who  showed  exceptional 
vigour  or  initiative,  slave-owners  as  a  class  were  able  to  lessen 
the   likelihood  of  effective  combinations  for  the  purpose  of 

82 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  83 

But,  above  all,  use  and  custom  could  as  a  rule  be  relied  upon 
to  uphold  the  existing  system  when  once  it  had  been  set  on  foot. 
With  the  Romans,  as  mth  the  Greeks  and  every  people  among 
whom  slavery  had  become  the  prevailing  form  of  labour,  making 
all  other  forms  seem  more  or  less  degraded,  slaves  became 
imbued  with  the  ideas  of  their  masters.  In  modem  times  we 
observe  precisely  the  same  phenomenon.  Wage  slavery  is 
obviously  only  chattel  slavery  in  disguise,  and  the  wage  slaves 
form  the  great  majority  of  the  population  in  most  highly  civilised 
countries.  Yet  they  usually  accept  this  permanent  subjugation 
as  inevitable,  are  ready  to  believe  that  the  position  they  have 
inherited  is  quite  as  it  should  be,  and  follow  the  economic  teach- 
ings dictated  by  their  employers  as  revelations  of  inspired  truth. 
Having  thus  become  hypnotised  by  use  and  custom,  it  was  no 
easy  matter  to  move  Roman  slaves  to  any  serious  action  in 
their  own  interest.  In  the  great  towns,  where  a  successful 
blow  would  have  been  most  effective,  the  slave-owners  were  so 
well  organised,  and  so  perpetually  on  the  alert,  that  preparation 
for  a  combined  attack  by  their  chattels  was  extremely  difficult, 
without  their  getting  wind  of  it  and  being  able  to  gather 
together  police  and  soldiery  to  crush  it.  In  the  country  the 
distances  from  one  possible  rallying  point  to  another,  the  lack 
of  arms,  and,  in  spite  of  the  contentions  of  some  writers,  the 
inefficiency  of  such  slave-organisations  as  may  have  existed  to 
ensure  permanent  cohesion,  rendered  anything  like  the  forma- 
tion of  an  army  capable  of  holding  its  own  against  Roman 
legions  apparently  impossible. 

So  that  the  acceptance  of  servitude  and  the  apathy  of  the 
slaves  themselves  about  their  social  condition,  as  well  as  the 
natural  obstacles  which  stood  in  the  way  of  vigorous  and 
organised  endeavour,  made  any  successful  upheaval  of  the 
masses  of  the  servile  population  almost  beyond  their  reach. 
If  a  really  favourable  opportunity  came,  and  men  of  almost 
superhuman  courage  and  genius  rose  up  as  leaders  of  the 
oppressed  classes,  jealousy,  bribery,  treachery  and  the  want 
of  any  definite  policy  of  social  reconstruction  nearly  always  made 
their  success  only  temporary.  Thus  in  Greece  when  the  slaves 
of  the  Laurium  silver  mines,  the  men  who  were  condemned 
to  Ufe-long  suffering  and  death  under  merciless  contractors, 
attained  their  freedom  by  a  successful  insurrection  at  the  crisis 


84     EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

of  the  Peloponnesian  War  to  the  immense  injury  of  Athens : 
when  in  the  island  of  Chios  the  slaves,  under  Drimakos,  gained 
the  mastery  and  dominated  their  owners,  nothing  definite  was 
achieved  for  the  slaves  or  their  successors.  At  Chios  Drimakos, 
their  leader,  was  driven  to  death  by  the  very  same  people  whom 
he  had  helped  to  emancipate.  Only  in  Tyre  did  the  slaves  win 
outright;  and,  having  slaughtered  their  oppressors,  they  took 
possession  of  the  city.  They  held  it  until  their  descendants, 
after  a  magnificent  resistance,  were  butchered  by  Alexander  the 
Great.  But  during  the  interval  they  effected  no  genuine  social 
revolution  ;  they  simply  carried  on  the  system  which  had  been 
established  by  their  Phoenician  masters,  taking  their  place  and 
enslaving  their  former  oppressors. 

All  this,  however,  enables  us  to  appreciate  more  fully  the 
tremendous  fights  of  the  slaves  of  Spain  under  the  leadership  of 
Viriathus  in  Sicily,  under  Eunus,  Achceus  and  Cleon,  and  later 
under  Athenion,  and,  lastly,  in  Italy  under  the  splendid  general- 
ship of  Spartacus.  In  every  case  Rome  triumphed  in  the  end. 
But  Eunus,  a  native  of  Syria,  with  his  two  generals,  held  his 
own  against  the  Roman  forces  for  seventeen  years,  giving  him- 
self all  the  importance  of  a  king.  The  cause  of  the  insurrection 
was,  as  usual,  the  frightful  cruelty  with  which  the  slaves,  brought 
to  Sicily  from  all  the  territories  recently  conquered,  were 
worked  to  death  in  the  mines  and  on  the  land.  It  was  a  long 
war  of  massacre  on  both  sides. 

If  Eunus,  instead  of  surrounding  himself  with  pomp  and 
luxury,  had  spent  his  time,  together  with  his  experienced  officers, 
in  thoroughly  training  new  armies  and  getting  sound  civilian 
government  on  foot,  could  he  have  established  Sicily,  with  its 
great  resources,  as  an  independent  republic  ?  Probably  not, 
seeing  that  Rome  was  then  in  full  march  towards  world-wide 
supremacy.  But  since  he  did  not  take  the  means  to  ensure  the 
possibility  of  permanent  rule,  and  went  off  into  wonder-working 
and  Asiatic  mysteries,  it  is  evident  that  he  never  saw  his  way 
clearly  out  of  the  struggle.  This  again  proves  that,  neither  his 
generals  nor  anybody  else  having  been  able  to  supplant  his 
theocratic  incapacity,  after  ten  years  of  almost  unchallenged 
supremacy  in  the  island,  the  slaves,  with  all  their  numbers  and 
success,  had  no  real  perception  of  what  they  themselves  desired 
to  achieve. 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  85 

It  is  a  part  of  the  irony  of  the  whole  situation  that  Piso,  the 
Roman  democrat,  who  completely  defeated  Eunus'  armies  and 
captm*ed  Eunus  himself,  was  as  unmerciful  to  the  vanquished 
slaves  as  the  most  reactionary  aristocrat  of  them  all.  Whole- 
sale crucifixions  of  thousands  of  slaves,  and  the  condemnation  of 
the  remainder  to  more  relentless  slave-driving  than  ever,  were 
the  outcome  of  this  serious  and  lengthy  insurrection,  begun  at  a 
time  when  Rome  had  plenty  of  difficulties  on  her  hands  from 
every  quarter.  Incidentally  it  may  be  noted  that  modern 
writers  on  the  great  struggle  between  Rome  and  Carthage  nearly 
always  show  favour  to  the  former  power ;  giving  the  idea  that 
Carthaginians  were  more  ferocious  and  ruthless  than  their 
successful  enemies  in  the  treatment  of  their  slaves  and  their 
colonists.  It  is,  however,  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more 
horrible  than  the  treatment  by  the  Romans  of  the  peoples  who, 
defending  tlieir  own  countries,  were  defeated  in  battle;  nor 
could  the  pimishments  inflicted  on  the  slaves  in  the  great  servile 
re\^olt  in  Carthage  have  exceeded  the  atrocities  committed  by 
Roman  generals  on  defeated  slaves  in  the  course  of  two  or  three 
centuries. 

The  popularity  of  the  gladiatorial  displays,  not  only  in  Rome 
itself  but  in  all  the  chief  cities  of  the  Empire,  was  a  form  of 
blood-lust  and  butchery  to  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  Car- 
thaginians were  not  addicted.  Nothing  could  be  more  frightful 
than  the  scenes  of  the  arena  when,  apart  from  fights  to  the 
death  between  the  gladiators,  who  at  least  had  a  remote  chance 
of  survival,  unarmed  men,  women  and  children  captives  were 
thrown  into  the  great  circuses  to  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts. 
Moreover,  the  noblest  Romans,  aristocrats  regarded  as  the  high- 
est type  of  humane  men  in  regard  to  their  own  fellow-citizens 
and  their  allies,  were  so  entirely  the  creatures  of  their  day  and 
generation  that  even  Titus  and  Trajan  were  unable  to  emanci- 
pate themselves  from  the  horrors  of  the  prevailing  system. 
The  former  pursued  the  familiar  practice  of  crucifying  prisoners 
by  the  thousand,  and  selling  thousands  more  into  slavery  after 
the  capture  of  Jerusalem  ;  the  latter,  whose  goodness  passed 
into  a  proverb  for  generations  after  his  death,  was  remarkable 
for  his  encoiu-agement  of  gladiatorial  exhibitions  on  a  vast  scale 
for  the  delectation  of  his  people.  Of  the  two,  then,  it  appears 
that  the  Semitic  aristocrats  and  plutocratic  merchants  and 


86  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

slave-owners  of  Carthage  were  less  cold-blooded  in  their  ruth- 
lessness  than  the  Aryans  of  the  Italian  peninsula,  and  those 
whom  they  absorbed  into  their  growing  republic  and  empire. 
It  makes  very  little  difference. 

But  the  immensity  of  the  Roman  Empire,  its  magnificent 
public  works,  its  great  jurisprudence  based  upon  the  strictest 
rights  of  property,  its  fine  literature,  which  has  been  drilled  into 
successive  generations  of  our  well-to-do  and  relatively  well- 
educated  classes,  its  marvellous  steadfastness  under  good  and 
bad  fortune,  have  together  partially  closed  the  eyes  of  modern 
Europeans  to  the  dreadful  system  of  world-wide  extortion  and 
infamy  upon  which  this  imposing  superstructure  was  based. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  effect  of  slavery  in  corrupting  the  whole 
moral  sense  of  the  highest  among  the  Romans  is  overlooked. 
While,  for  example,  we  admire  the  forensic  and  political  oratory 
as  well  as  the  philosophy  of  Cicero,  who  may  fairly  be  considered 
as  the  founder  of  our  somewhat  verbose  modern  style,  alike  of 
eloquence  and  of  writing,  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  this  vehe- 
ment champion  of  the  reactionary  aristocracy  of  Rome  itself 
not  only  advocated  the  most  diabolical  cruelty  towards  the 
slaves,  but  often,  it  may  almost  be  said  habitually,  caused  his 
political  opponents  to  be  executed  without  trial,  and  even 
without  any  formal  accusation.  Among  other  misdeeds,  he 
strangled  Catiline  in  prison  with  his  own  hands,  fearing  the 
consequences  of  an  open  trial.  But  in  the  end  he  received  his 
reward. 

What  is  true  of  Cicero  is  true  also  of  most  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  Republic.  Caesar,  who  professed  and  to  some  extent 
practised  democratic  opinions  about  the  Roman  populace, 
who  was  murdered  by  the  ferocious  aristocratic  usurer  Brutus 
and  his  hired  cut-throats,  who  was  the  most  formidable  enemy 
of  "  the  old  families  "  since  Caius  Gracchus,  who  also  was  the 
real  founder  of  the  Empire  which  did  something  to  curb  the 
power  of  that  merciless  oligarchy — Caesar  himself,  merely  as  a 
matter  of  political  business,  and  as  a  step  to  supreme  power, 
devastated  a  great  part  of  Gaul,  slaughtered  the  inhabitants 
wholesale,  and  is  estimated  to  have  sold  not  fewer  than  a  million 
Gallic  captives  into  slavery.  The  Romans,  that  is  to  say, 
possessed  the  most  powerful  and  ruthless  social  machine  for 
the  extension  of  human  oppression  that  had  ever  been  seen. 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  87 

Their  military  system  was  persistently  used  to  plunder,  butcher 
and  enslave  less  perfectly  organised  populations,  and  their 
financial  greed  and  impersonal  money  power  stepped  in  to 
complete  the  ruin  ^^Tought  by  their  arms.  So  completely, 
likewise,  did  the  Roman  governing  classes  of  all  shades  of 
opinion  believe  in  Rome's  manifest  destiny  to  crush  the  proud, 
and  spare,  after  her  ruthless  fashion,  the  vanquished,  that  it  was 
quite  impossible  for  them  to  think  of  foreign  affairs  or  general 
administration  except  in  terms  of  conquest,  rapine,  slave- 
selling  and  usury,  followed  by  considerations  as  to  the  most 
effective  means  of  extracting  perpetual  tribute.  None  escaped 
from  this  foul  influence. 

When  nearly  the  whole  of  the  provinces  of  the  Republic  were 
in  revolt  against  almost  the  last  stage  of  this  tremendous  ad- 
vance in  world-wide  domination,  the  great  servile  insurrection 
in  Italy  under  Spartacus  occurred.  Never  could  there  have 
been  a  better  opportunity  for  such  an  upheaval.  In  east  and 
west  alike  the  Roman  armies  were  fully  occupied.  The  result  of 
the  fresh  struggle  against  Mithridates  hung  in  the  balance.  The 
war  in  Spain  looked  doubtful.  Italians  of  the  south  who  had 
suffered  terribly  in  the  so-called  "social  war"  were  greatly  dis- 
affected and  ready  if  not  to  aid,  at  least  to  refrain  from  obstruct- 
ing, a  rising  that  might  incidentally  help  them.  In  Rome  itself 
the  class  wars  and  bloody  faction  fights  were  never  more 
tlireatening.  The  recent  arrival  of  large  bodies  of  slaves  from 
powerful  and  warlike  tribes  provided  the  numbers  and  the 
vigour  needed  to  furnish  a  fine  slave  army,  if  only  arms  could  be 
obtained.  Beginning  with  two  hundred  slaves  and  a  trifling 
success,  arms  were  obtained  by  attack  on  a  convoy,  and 
Spartacus,  the  Thracian  gladiator,  took  the  leadership  of  the 
revolt,  and  showed  himself,  from  first  to  last,  a  man  of  military 
genius  and  of  great  poUtical  foresight.  No  ordinary  general 
could  have  created  a  powerful,  well-disciplined  and  adequately 
supplied  army  of  at  least  a  hundred  thousand  men  out  of  im- 
trained  slaves  of  different  nationalities,  speaking  various  tongues. 
Hannibal  himself  performed  no  greater  feat.  Nine  successive 
victories  over  the  best  Roman  generals  then  available  for  home 
service  showed  the  Romans  what  sort  of  genius  they  had  to 
contend  against,  and  made  them  fear  that  Spartacus  might  be 
completely  successful  and  capture  Rome  itself.    But  the  slave 


88  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

commander  was  too  wise  to  attempt  such  a  dangerous  siege. 
Where  the  famous  Carthaginian  hesitated  he  too  held  back. 
If  jealousies  had  not  arisen,  and  the  familiar  weapons  of  bribery 
and  treachery  had  not  been  used,  or  if  he  had  succeeded  in 
getting  to  Sicily,  he  and  his  men  could  perhaps  have  continued 
the  war  which  he  had  carried  on  for  four  years  and  a  half  on 
the  mainland,  releasing  slaves,  freeing  prisoners  and  relieving 
debtors  in  every  direction. 

But  it  seems  certain  that  Spartacus  felt  from  the  first  that 
his  magnificent  effort  was  doomed  to  failure,  unless  he  could 
induce  his  troops  to  withdraw  from  Italy  to  some  district  where 
he  could  make  reasonably  sure  of  continuous  support.  He 
himself  looked  to  Thrace,  and  only  when  a  march  thither  was 
rendered  impossible  by  the  ardour  of  his  soldiers  for  loot  did  he 
try  to  embark  his  army  for  Sicily.  But  throughout  Spartacus, 
the  greatest  leader  the  proletariat  ever  had,  kept  his  head.  He 
neither  set  up  his  kingship  like  Eunus  and  Athenion,  nor 
neglected  the  discipline  of  his  forces  like  Viriathus.  There  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  so  far  as  possible  he  was  merciful 
to  the  armies  he  defeated  and  to  the  people  of  the  towns  and 
cities  where  he  quartered  his  men  :  a  policy  which  was  not  only 
humane  but  advantageous.  At  length,  by  no  fault  of  his  own, 
he  was  defeated  in  a  decisive  battle  by  a  great  concentration 
of  the  Roman  armies  which  had  been  brought  in  from  a  distance. 
He  died  fighting  in  the  field.  The  usual  results  followed. 
Many  thousands  of  slaves  were  crucified  along  the  Roman 
roads,  impalement  and  other  Asiatic  tortures  being  also  resorted 
to.     The  rest  became  slaves  again. 

Thus  this,  by  far  the  most  extensive  and  best-organised  slave 
insurrection  of  antiquity,  broke  down.  Unlike  the  Romans, 
Spartacus  had  no  definite  centre  and  no  recognised  social 
system.  He  desired,  not  to  constitute  in  Italy  a  rival  republic 
to  Rome,  but  to  return  to  his  native  Thrace ;  and  this,  as  all 
historians  agree,  shows  conclusively  that  he  believed  the  slaves 
by  themselves  had  little  chance  of  eventual  success  within  the 
area  where  he  won  his  amazing  victories.  And  that  was 
the  truth.  Courage,  sagacity,  initiative,  statesmanship,  noble 
qualities  of  every  kind,  were  powerless  finally  to  make  head 
against  the  vampire  growth  which  he  had  to  encounter  in  the 
days  of  its  apparently  inevitable  expansion.     The  time  was  not 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  89 

yet ;  and  force  by  itself  was  not  sufficient  to  push  forward  the 
evolution  of  human  society  into  the  next  stage  of  its  still  un- 
conscious development.  The  insurrection  headed  by  Spartacus, 
with  all  the  reputation  gained  by  his  early  victories  and  admir- 
able judgment,  could  not  overthrow  Roman  domination,  even 
in  a  period  of  serious  crisis  at  home  and  abroad.  Therefore  we 
must  conclude  that  such  risings,  justifiable  as  they  were,  and 
useful  as  they  might  be  in  urging  on  the  enactment  of  palli- 
atives of  slavery  and  in  keeping  alive  the  spirit  of  the  dominated 
class,  were  entirely  futile  as'practical  efforts  to  obtain  premature 
emancipation.  The  two  essential  elements  of  triumphant 
social  revolution  were  both  wanting :  the  economic  and  social 
evolution  was  not  ready  for  the  transformation  :  the  class 
striving  for  emancipation  was  not  yet  able  to  comprehend  and 
control  its  own  surroundings. 

From  this  time  onwards,  therefore,  through  the  entire  period 
of  the  Empire,  slavery  remained  the  deciding  factor  in  the 
economic  and  social  field.  Free  farmers  struggled  with  varying 
fortune  against  slave-worked  properties  in  the  country ;  free 
artisans  with  their  "  colleges  "  were  in  competition  with  the 
trained  slaves  in  the  city ;  the  coloni,  who  were  the  economic 
and  social  ancestors  of  the  serfs,  held  a  position  midway  between 
the  free  peasant  farmers,  who  had  plenty  of  troubles  of  their 
own,  and  the  slaves.  There  is  never  a  period  when  one  element 
of  method  of  production  completely  overwhelms  or  supplants 
the  others.  Even  Egypt,  with  its  constant  supply  of  slaves 
from  without,  in  its  greatest  period  of  prosperity  saw  small  pro- 
prietors still  carrying  on  their  hereditary  business.  But  slavery 
once  introduced,  all  the  class  antagonisms  above  had  little  or 
no  interest  for  the  slaves  themselves,  either  before  or  after  the 
great  Spartacus  rising. 

From  the  very  first,  the  inflexible  courage  and  determination 
of  the  free  legionaries  who  at  last  fought  down  the  power  of 
Carthage  brought  about  their  own  ruin,  in  the  very  surroundings 
of  the  city  for  whose  welfare,  as  they  believed,  they  had  striven. 
By  the  exquisite  irony  of  economic  history,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
slaves  and  the  wealth  which  the  peasant  soldiery  secured  for 
Rome  were  the  agents  which  assured,  in  the  long  run,  their  own 
expropriation  and  poverty.  Their  losses  on  the  field  of  battle 
terribly  depleted  the  ranks  of  the  free  yeomen,  leaving  them  with 


90  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

less  force  to  encounter  their  enemies  at  home ;  while  their 
victories  strengthened  the  aristocrats  and  rich  plebeians  in 
their  social  and  political  campaign  against  the  rights  of  their 
fellow-citizens.  The  slaves  from  abroad,  beaten  on  the  field 
of  battle,  avenged  themselves  with  all  their  sufferings  on  the 
field  of  production.  Given  the  existing  conditions,  the  im- 
mediate results  were  inevitable.  Everything  combined  to 
enable  the  great  landowners,  more  especially  in  Italy,  to 
defeat  the  upholders  of  the  old  system  with  its  equitable 
distribution  of  the  public  land.  Aristocrats  with  land  slaves 
and  money  steadily  overcame  freemen  farmers  with  land  but 
with  no  resources. 

Slavery,  particularly  on  pasture  lands  with  cattle,  was  re- 
munerative. Pasturage,  given  a  market  not  too  remote  for  the 
advantageous  disposal  of  the  products,  relatively  yielded  more 
return  to  the  land  and  slave  owner  than  arable  cultivation,  for 
the  number  of  slaves  employed.  This  has  been  seen  frequently 
in  agricultural  history,  notably  in  our  own  country  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  VII.  and  in  the  nineteenth  century.  There  are 
those  who  contend  that,  owing  to  the  numerous  drawbacks 
attendant  upon  it,  such  as  the  carelessness  or  actual  disinclina- 
tion of  the  slaves  in  relation  to  their  work,  the  cost  of  super- 
vision, the  gaps  in  the  appUcation  of  their  labour  on  the  land, 
and  the  losses  due  to  escapes  and  disease,  slavery  must  under 
all  circiunstances  succumb  to  free  labour.  But  the  fact  remains 
that  the  enormous  accumulation  of  riches  for  those  times  in 
Egypt,  the  Grecian  States,  in  Asia  Minor  and  the  East  generally 
had  all  been  piled  up  by  slave  hands.  It  could  have  come  from 
no  other  source.  If  the  Romans  failed  to  produce  similar  results 
from  the  employment  of  the  slaves,  this  must  have  been  due  to 
faulty  management — not,  certainly,  to  any  humane  scruples 
as  to  the  treatment  of  their  slaves.  Moreover,  when,  as  on 
well-managed  estates,  slaves  who  had  Httle  to  do  during  Avinter 
were  employed  industrially  on  spinning,  weaving,  and  handling 
metals  in  the  slave  work-prisons  called  ergastulse,  one  source 
of  leakage  was  at  once  stopped,  to  the  benefit  of  the  owners. 
In  the  city  also  trained  slaves,  whether  for  direct  employment 
by  their  owners  or  for  letting  out  to  contractors,  were  valuable 
property,  as  was  proved  by  the  sums  paid  for  the  lease  of  such 
slaves  by  their  hirers  in  various  departments,  aHke  in  Greece, 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  91 

in  Rome  and  in  the  Roman  pro\inces.  Slaves,  indeed,  worked 
side  by  side  with  free  labourers  on  public  works  and  elsewhere, 
which  seems  to  prove  that  they  showed  no  great  inferiority. 

Again,  it  is  certain  that  slave  labour,  even  in  modern 
times,  built  up  large  fortunes  in  the  Southern  States  of 
America  as  well  as  in  the  West  Indies.  There  is,  in  fact,  no 
absolute  rule  in  the  matter  beyond  this  :  while  slaves  were 
cheap  and  plentiful  and  supervision  easy,  slave  labour  was 
more  remunerative.  But  when  the  slave  markets  grew  empty, 
and  these  human  chattels  became  more  scarce  and  dear,  the 
economic  balance,  as  we  shall  see,  swung  the  other  way.  Yet 
a  bom  slave-driver  and  extorter  of  the  last  ounce  of  personal 
gain  out  of  everything  he  touched,  such  as  Cato  the  Censor, 
would  never  have  employed  slaves  unless  they  had  returned  him 
something  very  handsome  per  head.  That  it  was  purely  a 
matter  of  money  with  him  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  re- 
commended all  his  fellow  slave-owners  to  sell  or  get  rid  of  the 
old  slaves  that  were  past  work — a  cynical  recommendation 
which  seems  to  have  shocked  decent  Romans  of  the  period. 
(They  appear  to  have  felt  a  personal  responsibility  for  their 
decrepit  and  worn-out  chattel  slaves  which  the  employers  of 
wage  slaves  do  not  generally  feel.) 

Wliat  the  effect  of  the  slave  system  was  upon  the  slave-owning 
and  slave-employing  class  while  slavery  was  the  controlling 
labour  form  has  often  been  described,  and  does  not  affect  its 
economic  significance.  That  it  was  in  every  way  morally  de- 
grading, from  the  great  gladiatorial  conflicts  in  the  arena  to 
similar  murderous  displays  at  private  entertainments,  from  the 
horde  of  parasites  who  swarmed  round  the  Imperial  Court  and 
cumbered  the  palaces  of  the  very  rich,  is  found  recorded  in  all 
the  descriptions  of  the  time.  But  cruelty,  blood-lust,  excess, 
ostentation,  extravagance,  vice  and  wholesale  debauchery  had 
no  direct  influence  in  destroying  slavery  as  an  institution. 
Ethics  have  little  or  no  effect  on  the  course  of  human  develop- 
ment. Not  Rome  alone  but  all  the  great  slave  empires  of 
antiquity  are  convincing  evidence  of  this.  The  question  to  be 
decided  in  the  long  centuries  of  Imperial  domination  was,  could 
the  free  labourers  and  farmers,  artisans  and  freed  men  who  stood 
between  the  slave-o^vners  and  the  plebs — that  body  of  gratuit- 
ously fed  poor  citizens  which  only  existed  in  Rome — hold  their 


92     EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

own  in  the  future  against  their  servile  rivals  ?  Combinations 
of  free  citizens,  buttressed  and  strengthened  by  the  freed  men 
rising  from  the  slave  class,  as  well  as  by  the  large  numbers  of 
free  official  servants  of  the  Republic  and  Empire  in  the  lower 
grades,  helped  the  artisans  in  this  silent  conflict.  We  know  that 
they  were  even  regarded  as  a  danger  on  this  account  not  only 
from  general  remarks  upon  their  growth  and  importance,  but 
from  the  observations  of  so  capable  and  wide-minded  a  ruler  as 
Trajan.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Pliny,  as  we  have  seen,  he  speaks 
with  strong  prejudice  against  a  very  small  group  of  citizens  in 
the  capital  of  Bithynia,  who  had  organised  themselves  for  some 
sort  of  joint  economic  protection. 

It  is  remarkable  that  under  the  Empire  the  slaves  themselves 
rarely  made  any  organised  effort  against  their  oppressors.  But 
at  various  periods  we  hear  of  what  we  should  now  call  anarchistic 
outbreaks,  which  could  scarcely  have  been  carried  out  apart 
from  their  connivance.  The  great  incendiary  attempt  to  burn 
down  Rome  under  Nero  was  attributed  to  the  Christians ;  and 
as  many  of  the  slaves  were  members  of  that  faith  the  imputa- 
tion may  not  be  wholly  groundless,  while  the  same  can  be  said 
of  similar  proceedings  in  other  cities.  Three  times  the  palace 
of  Diocletian  was  burnt  over  his  head.  And  the  Christians, 
who  repudiated  any  share  of  their  co-religionists  in  the  Roman 
conflagration,  have  never  been  at  any  pains  to  deny  that  this 
wholesale  arson  committed  at  the  expense  of  their  persecutor, 
Diocletian,  was  quite  possibly  carried  out  by  persons  of  their 
own  creed.  But  anarchy  had  as  little  effect  in  upsetting  slavery 
as  it  had  in  intimidating  the  Emperors.  Such  mitigations  in  the 
lot  of  the  slaves  as  were  introduced  were  certainly  not  due  to 
the  terror  inspired  by  their  risings ;  nor  did  the  teachings  of  the 
Church  prevail  until  the  time  when  the  stream  of  economic 
progress  set  strongly  towards  emancipation.  Here,  as  in  other 
cases,  economics,  speaking  generally,  ordain  the  course  of  im- 
provement ;  ethics  approve  what  economics  have  rendered 
inevitable  or  advisable ;  religion  winds  up  by  blessing  results 
manifestly  about  to  be  achieved  or  already  attained. 

From  first  to  last  the  economic  and  financial  condition  of 
Imperial  Rome  was  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium.  Even 
during  the  period  of  the  generally  peaceful  and  successful  rule 
of  Trajan,  Hadrian  and  the  Antonines,  financial  troubles  at  the 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  93 

centre  were  by  no  means  uncommon,  and  the  people  and  slaves 
suffered  below  when  all  seemed  secure  at  the  top.  Later,  even 
during  the  fortunate  Imperial  career  of  Diocletian,  there  was  no 
permanent  security.  Neither  peace  nor  well-meant  measures 
for  social  improvement  could  breathe  new  life  into  a  system 
wliich  was  decaying  at  its  base.  It  was  not  the  presumed  un- 
productive character  of  slave  labour,  with  all  its  admitted  draw- 
backs, which  was  the  cause  of  this  continuous  trouble.  It  was 
the  fact  that,  all  the  time,  the  great  Imperial  metropolis,  Rome 
herself,  was  continually  absorbing  wealth  from  without  and 
making  no  commercial  return,  luxuriating  in  unproductive 
and  extravagant  expenditure  of  every  kind,  regardless  of  the 
future.  The  metropolis  was  peopled  to  a  large  extent  by 
citizens  who  made  no  pretence  of  working  for  their  own  or  the 
general  benefit.  They  were  dependent,  even  for  the  necessaries 
of  life,  upon  sea-borne  supplies  from  without  gratuitously 
distributed.  To  such  a  pitch  of  economic  stress  had  matters 
been  brought  that,  just  when  the  Empire  was  immensely  power- 
ful in  the  field — capable  even  of  retrieving  such  a  terrible 
disaster  as  that  which  befell  Diocletian's  associate-emperor 
Galerius  —  the  mischiefs  of  the  whole  fmancial,  fiscal  and 
monetary  system  were  felt  more  acutely  than  ever. 

While  the  economic  and  social  situation  was  thus  threatening, 
and  war  was  being  waged  on  the  frontiers  and  in  Britain,  a  very 
formidable  insurrection  of  the  slave  peasantry  broke  out  in 
Gaul.  These  unfortunate  people,  the  Bagaudae,  were  suffering 
from  every  conceivable  form  of  oppression  and  robbery.  They 
were  chattel  slaves  in  all  but  name  of  the  local  landowners  of  the 
same  race  as  themselves.  They  were  also  at  the  mercy  of  Im- 
perial tax-gatherers,  and  the  military  anarchy  which  devastated 
Gaul  put  an  end  to  any  security  for  property  or  Ufe.  At  last, 
driven  to  despair,  these  unfortunate  peasants  rose  in  insurrec- 
tion all  over  the  province.  There  is  no  full  account  of  their 
campaign  against  their  oppressors,  but  it  is  at  least  certain 
that  at  the  commencement  of  their  upheaval  they  were  fully 
successful  against  their  immediate  landowners  and  tjrrants, 
and  that  the  Bagaudae  became  for  the  time  being  masters  of 
rural  Gaul. 

This  was  not  surprising.  Notwithstanding  the  success  in 
arms  of  the  joint  Emperors,  discontent  was  rife  everywhere. 


94  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Roman  prestige  had  been  much  shaken,  and  the  influence  of  the 
great  Imperial  capital  over  the  provinces  had  been  continually 
sapped  by  the  habitual  absence  of  the  Emperor  himself  from  the 
metropolis  and  the  declining  power  of  the  Senate.  If  ever  in 
Roman  history  there  was  a  time  when  the  slave  class,  thoroughly 
organised,  could  possibly  have  succeeded  in  putting  forward  the 
hour  of  the  day  which  the  sun  recorded  on  the  dial  of  human 
progress,  this  was  the  moment  for  such  an  attempt  on  their  part. 
The  campaigns  of  Eunus,  Spartacus  and  Viriathus  had  been 
carried  on  imder  circumstances  which,  as  we  can  now  see,  on 
looking  back  at  them,  rendered  permanent  victory  quite  im- 
possible. Rome  was  then  a  great  rising  power.  Her  prodigious 
force  was  based  upon  the  patriotic  determination  and  coiu'agc 
of  her  free  citizen  farmers  who  were  beguiled  into  the  idea  that 
they  were  fighting  for  their  own  well-being  against  enemies 
abroad  and  enemies  at  home.  Even  if  the  great  slave  leaders 
had  won  final  and  not  temporary  success,  they  themselves 
could  have  done  no  more  than  establish  the  same  slavery 
with  a  new  face,  the  slaves  being  the  masters  and  the 
masters  the  slaves.  No  other  issue  of  the  struggle  could  be. 
The  social  evolution  would  have  gone  on  as  before ;  slavery 
would  still  have  been  the  economic  foundation  of  the  whole 
social  structure. 

But  now  the  situation  was  different.  The  class  in  revolt 
had  apparently  some  genuine  chance  of  obtaining  economic 
and  social  freedom.  Not  only  had  slavery  passed  its  highest 
point,  the  central  administration  had  been  spUt  up  and  was 
much  weaker  in  consequence ;  even  the  great  mercenary  legions 
were  widely  distributed,  while  the  high  price  of  food  favoured 
production  and  payment  in  kind.  But  the  class  to  be  freed  by 
this  slave  peasant  revolt  was  not  yet  ready  for  emancipation, 
was  not  organised  enough  to  administrate  its  own  affairs  or  to 
conquer  even  local  political  power;  and  was  not  sufficiently 
educated  to  imderstand  the  difficulties  to  be  met.  Also  it 
wholly  lacked  the  military  discipUne  which  had  distinguished 
the  newly  captured  slaves  under  Spartacus.  So,  when  they 
encountered  the  Imperial  legions  which  were  rushed  into  Gaul, 
they  fell  to  pieces  and  underwent  the  fate  of  all  insurrectionists 
who  bravely  and  legitimately  anticipate  their  epoch.  They 
had  only  won  temporary  revenge,  like  their  followers  in  the 


SLAVE  REVOLTS  95 

valley  of  misery  more  than  a  thousand  years  afterwards,  upon 
the  nobles  who  outraged  them. 

But  the  Bagaudae  had  earlier  successes  than  the  Jacquerie  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  Within  a  century  and  a  half  of  this 
unfortunate  failure  in  a.d.  297,  their  children  and  grandchildren, 
undeterred  by  the  defeat  of  their  forbears,  constituted  so  formid- 
able a  combination  under  the  same  name  that  a  large  part  of 
Gaul,  and  a  still  larger  part  of  Spain,  fell  for  a  short  time  under 
the  control  of  the  peasants.  The  Roman  Government  itself  had 
become  so  hateful  in  every  way,  with  its  excessive  taxes  and  pro- 
scriptions and  terrible  atrocities,  that  the  whole  country  was  in 
a  continuous  state  of  revolt;  and  the  invasions  and  attacks  of 
barbarian  tribes  were  preferred  to  the  civilised  and  systematic 
outrages  of  decadent  Rome.  In  short,  the  economic  and  social 
breakdown  of  chattel  slavery  and  centralised  taxation  and 
rapine  by  a  nominal  government  would  have  compelled  the 
introduction  of  some  fresh  organisation,  even  if  the  hordes  of 
the  frontiers  had  never  entered  the  Roman  dominions. 


CHAPTER  X 

SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  (1) 

The  rise  of  Rome  as  the  great  slave  power  of  the  Western  world 
was  slow;  and,  in  view  of  the  apparently  insuperable  diffi- 
culties encountered  and  overcome,  it  seems  extraordinary  to  us 
to-day.  High-water  mark  in  this  slavery  was  reached  at  the 
end  of  the  Republic  and  under  the  rule  of  the  first  Emperors. 
Yet,  as  already  observed,  slavery  was  the  chief  but  not  the  only 
element  of  production  in  the  Empire,  even  at  its  highest  point. 
Small  ownership  of  land,  especially  in  the  provinces,  artisanship 
in  the  cities,  such  as  Alexandria  and  Corinth  and  Rome  itself, 
were  carried  on  side  by  side  with  slave  cultivation  and  slave 
production  of  certain  classes  of  goods.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
of  slavery  as  an  institution,  either  in  Rome  and  Italy,  or  in  the 
great  provinces  :  here  it  was  that  the  decay  of  slavery  began. 
In  the  great  public  works  the  contracts  were  taken  by  em- 
ployers, some  of  whom  employed  slaves,  some  free  men  who 
toiled  for  wages — some  both  at  the  same  time.  Large  slave- 
owners in  Rome  as  in  Greece  let  out  their  slaves  to  others  who 
then  used  them  to  work  in  their  interest  in  mines  and  elsewhere, 
though  free  labourers  were  also  engaged  and  were  paid  wages 
for  similar  work. 

Thus  there  were  always  workers  in  the  various  departments 
of  industry  whom,  given  a  chance  in  economic  conditions  of 
slave  labour,  it  might  be  more  profitable  to  employ  than  the 
slaves  themselves.  This  was  especially  the  case  in  very  highly 
skilled  craftsmanship,  where  it  was  difficult  to  train  the  slaves, 
who,  as  a  rule,  had  no  direct  interest  in  the  exercise  of  their 
skill,  and  stiU  more  difficult  to  induce  them  to  give  the  careful 
attention  needed  for  artistic  success  in  this  sort  of  work.  Also 
certain  kinds  of  large  properties,  at  a  distance  from  the  markets, 
on  which  elaborate  superintendence  was  called  for,  could  not 
permanently  hold  their  own  in  arable  culture  against  small 
farmers  or  agricultural  workers  such  as  the  coloni,  who  tilled 

96 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  97 

primarily  for  the  support  of  themselves  and  their  famiUes.  The 
cost  of  transport,  to  be  referred  to  hereafter,  told  heavily  against 
slave  labour,  even  when  in  the  dull  winter  season  the  slaves 
were  forced  to  provide  articles  of  use  for  their  masters  or,  in 
case  of  surplus,  for  sale,  by  toiUng  at  trades  in  the  slave  work- 
shops which  were  maintained  on  the  land.  Only  for  pasturage 
could  slaves  be  used  permanently  to  advantage  in  tending  the 
flocks  and  herds  :  an  economic  fact  that  helped  to  extend 
the  latifundia,  great  slave-worked  estates,  which  had  far  more 
effect  in  Italy  than  in  the  provinces.  These,  as  we  have  seen, 
increased  greatly,  much  to  the  detriment  of  the  yeomen  and 
small  farmers,  towards  the  end  of  the  Republic. 

War  was  the  "  great  industry  "  of  Rome.  So  long  as  rich 
countries,  with  vast  accumulations  from  the  slave  labour  of  old, 
lay  open  to  the  Roman  legions,  this  highly  organised  industry 
was  immensely  profitable.  The  masses  of  treasure  seized,  first 
in  Italy,  then  brought  to  Rome  from  Carthage,  Greece,  Pontus, 
Egypt,  Sicily,  Spain,  and  even  Gaul,  were  accompanied  by 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  educated,  intelligent  and  civilised 
slaves.  These  two  sources  of  realised  and  realisable  wealth 
were  exhausted  when  the  era  of  great  conquests  was  overpast. 
Money  could  not  be  squeezed  out  of  the  barbarians  and  semi- 
barbarians  on  the  frontier  ;  slaves  could  no  longer  be  captured 
who  were  worth  much  more  than  their  keep.  Moreover,  Rome 
was  essentially  a  market  with  only  one  end  to  it.  As  there  was 
no  production  to  be  given  m  exchange  for  the  luxuries  imported 
from  without,  either  by  sea,  or  by  the  special  posts  organised 
for  land  transport,  the  spoils  of  the  conquered  countries  in 
precious  metals  were  inevitably  paid  away,  for  those  playthings 
of  the  rich,  to  the  merchants  of  those  provinces  whence  the  gold 
and  silver  had  originally  come.  In  this  way  a  return  was  ob- 
tained even  of  the  heavy  tributes  extorted  under  the  Empire. 

The  colossal  extravagance  of  the  emperors  and  of  private 
persons,  as  described  by  Roman  historians,  created  a  perpetual 
monetary  crisis  in  Rome  itself.  The  cost  of  the  maintenance  of 
the  free  Roman  proletariat,  who  were  fed  out  of  the  public 
granaries  because  they  had  votes,  intensified  the  difficulty. 
Although  taxes  were  exacted  with  the  greatest  rigour,  it  was  at 
last  impossible  to  obtain  payment  in  cash.  By  degrees,  that 
is  to  say,  the  treasure  robbed  abroad  had  been  drained  out  of 

G 


98  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Rome  again  to  the  conquered  provinces.  Unprofitable  ex- 
penditure on  huge  circuses,  temples,  aqueducts,  baths,  etc., 
only  made  matters  worse.  But  this  specially  applied  to  Italy 
and  the  Empire  in  the  West.  The  East  suffered  much  less  from 
this  purely  financial  trouble  because  its  commerce  with  Rome 
called  for  cash  payments.  Thus,  quite  slowly,  Rome  prepared 
for  her  own  decay  and  the  downfall  of  the  economic  basis  of  her 
domination  by  the  very  expansion  of  the  system  through  which 
she  rose  to  greatness.  For  slavery,  though  inevitable  and  in- 
dispensable in  the  cruel  upward  progress  of  mankind,  proved 
in  the  long  run  not  the  best  method  of  employing  labour  in 
production.  The  slave  in  agriculture,  as  in  manufacture,  was  an 
animated  tool  educated  to  perform  a  mechanical  toil.  Mortality 
among  slaves  was  very  heavy ;  they  not  infrequently  escaped 
when  opportunity  afforded.  It  is  calculated  that,  when  em- 
ploying the  same  means  of  production,  slaves  only  produced 
a  fraction  of  the  return  which  intelligent  free  workers  would 
obtain  by  arable  tillage  from  the  same  soil.  While  slave  labour 
was  cheap  this  did  not  matter ;  just  as,  in  our  own  day,  primitive 
labour-wasting  machinery  is  often  used  where  wages  are  low 
and  many  hands  can  be  employed.  But  when  labour  is  dear 
better  machinery  and  the  more  skilled  work  of  few  hands  take 
its  place. 

The  vast  spoils  which  these  free  peasants,  by  their  valour, 
poured  into  the  laps  of  their  patrician  nobility  hastened  on 
their  own  ruin.  That  was  the  stage  of  successful  slavery.  The 
public  land  in  the  conquered  territories  was  seized  by  the 
patricians  and  worked  by  the  captives. 

But  the  conquerors  were  conquered  also  by  the  arts,  culture, 
manufactures,  luxury  and  vices  of  their  defeated  enemies.  The 
West  overcame  the  East  by  arms,  the  East  vanquished  the  West 
by  intelligence  and  debauchery.  The  same  with  the  slaves. 
The  low  standard  of  humanity  inculcated  towards  them  fostered 
cruelty  and  brutality  all  round.  Their  employment  in  agri- 
culture slackened  the  rate  of  mechanical  progress,  while  their 
vices  of  flattery  and  treachery  affected  the  moral  of  their 
masters.  Constant  fear  of  spying  weakened  the  privacy  of  the 
home.  Slavery,  therefore,  in  its  prime  held  within  itself  all 
the  elements  of  its  own  ruin — economic,  social,  ethical.  But 
the  former  was,  throughout,  the  chief  cause  of  breakdown  as  of 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  99 

success.  While  slavery  was  supreme,  the  most  advanced  free 
cultivator  was  afraid  to  expend  any  savings  upon  better  tools 
from  Gaul,  for  fear  of  some  nefarious  devices  of  the  great  slave- 
owners to  bring  about  his  expropriation,  or  to  seize  him  as  a 
slave  himself,  unless  he  fled  from  his  holding.  When  slavery 
was  gradually  decaying,  agricultural  progress  was  arrested  by 
the  rapine  of  the  slaves  themselves,  whose  masters,  being  un- 
able to  keep  them  properly,  encouraged  them  to  prey  upon 
their  neighbours.  In  this  way  the  natural  conservatism  of 
the  peasant  farmer  or  the  free  colonist,  who  paid  in  produce 
for  the  right  to  cultivate  his  holding,  was  strengthened.  Also 
throughout  the  period  of  Roman  dominance  there  was  no  great 
accumulation  of  capital  which  could  be  used  in  the  processes 
of  production  by  employing  the  unpaid  labour  of  propertyless 
proletarians  for  the  purpose  of  making  profit. 

Capital  in  antiquity  and  during  the  Roman  Empire  was  obvi- 
ously quite  different  from  capital  to-day.  It  was  mainly  con- 
cerned with  commerce — with  making  a  profit  out  of  the  produce 
of  others.  It  did  not,  as  capital,  concern  itself  with  the  pro- 
cesses of  production.  Those  processes  were  small  and  very 
inefficient  as  compared  with  our  methods  of  to-day.  Moreover, 
they  remained  almost  stationary  for  very  many  centuries.  Pro- 
duction was  still  chiefly  for  direct  use ;  and  the  free  producers 
in  town  and  country  still  remained  in  control  of  their  own  tools 
and  were  mainly  masters  of  their  own  products.  The  slaves 
were  owned,  their  product  was  owned,  the  land  and  tools  were 
owned  by  the  slave-owners.  But  such  capital  as  he  employed, 
small  enough  in  any  case,  was  not  devoted  to  production  for 
exchange.  The  slave-owner  did  not  buy  his  slaves  and  raw 
material  for  gold  to  make  profit.  He  did  not  employ  them  at 
machines,  which  in  effect  commanded  them,  and  then  at  once, 
or  as  soon  as  he  could  contrive  to  do  so,  sell  their  product  for 
more  gold.     That  was  not  the  rule  at  all. 

So  it  was  likewise  in  the  mining  industry.  There,  un- 
doubtedly, the  object  was  to  make  profit  out  of  working  the 
slaves  to  death,  when  more  of  these  animated  tools  could  easily 
be  procured  at  a  cheap  rate ;  or  by  the  judicious  exploitation  of 
hired  slaves,  who  had  to  be  replaced  by  the  contractor  if  they 
died  at  their  work,  or  a  heavy  compensation  paid  for  their 
premature  decease.     This  also  applied  to  free  laboui-ers  who 


100  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

received  salaries  for  similar  laborious  toil.  But  even  in  this 
case,  where  gold,  silver,  or  copper,  or  iron  was  dug  out  of  the 
earth,  the  mineral  thus  extracted  performed  none  of  the  functions 
of  highly  developed  capitalism  such  as  we  see  around  us.  It  is 
quite  impossible  to  found  economic  arguments  about  the  past 
upon  what  we  observe  in  the  totally  different  system  of  the 
present.  Capital  as  the  dominant  economic  and  social  force  pro- 
ducing articles  for  exchange  and  for  exchange  alone,  by  employing 
free  labourers  who  have  no  option  but  to  work  for  wages,  never 
appeared  as  a  settled  form  of  industry  in  ancient  times.  It  is 
essentially  modern ;  and  could  not  have  manifested  itself  in  its 
present  shape  until  the  social  and  economic  conditions  in  which 
it  could  operate  had  been  historically  prepared. 

Therefore,  to  compare  capital,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  econo- 
mically and  scientifically  used  now,  with  capital  as  it  was  used  in 
past  ages,  even  when  taking  full  account  of  credit  and  banking 
as  then  developed,  is  entirely  to  misapprehend  the  whole  course 
of  the  economic  evolution.  As  it  was,  when  slavery  began  to 
decline  and  monetary  wealth  disappeared  from  the  Western 
Empire,  the  owners  of  large  properties  found  themselves  with- 
out the  moderate  amount  of  capital  necessary  to  raise  the  ex- 
ceptionally valuable  products  which  they  Jaad  previously  been 
accustomed  to  provide.  The  whole  system  had  never  at  any 
time  been  far  removed  from  production  for  personal  needs. 
At  no  period  did  the  mass  of  the  people  demand  luxuries  or 
even  superfluity  of  necessaries.  They  were  too  poor  to  create 
any  such  demand.  The  cities  controlled  the  country  politically 
but  never  economically.  Commerce,  in  fact,  so  far  as  Imperial 
Rome  was  concerned,  consisted  only  in  supplying  the  rich  and 
their  retainers  with  luxuries  of  every  kind,  from  the  emperors, 
their  households  and  their  armies  downwards.  The  proletar- 
ians were  fed  with  grain  from  Sicily,  Egypt,  Gaul,  the  Black 
Sea,  etc.,  for  all  of  which  there  was  no  commercial  return. 
Imports  were,  in  fact,  tributes  from  the  subjugated  provinces, 
or  articles  for  the  wealthy,  paid  for  in  gold,  luxuries  drained 
from  such  comitries  as  still  had  any  stores  of  precious  metals 
left.  Always,  during  the  whole  period  of  Rome's  pre-eminence, 
Roman  wealth  was  wealth  obtained  from  others  and  used 
unproductively. 

Consequently,  when  slavery  gradually  ceased  to  dominate 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  101 

as  the  most  common  form  of  labour,  and  monetary  economy, 
simultaneously,  became  restricted,  or  impossible,  owing  to  the 
lack  of  gold  and  silver  as  the  basis  of  credit,  there  was  a  steady 
return  to  the  ancient  method  of  family  production  for  use  by 
free  cultivators,  who  either  owned  their  own  land,  or  who,  as 
said,  paid  the  proprietors,  mostly  now  small  folk  likewise,  in 
kind  for  the  use  of  the  soil.  These  cultivators,  in  turn,  lived 
simply  on  their  family  work,  made  no  accumulations  of  wealth, 
or  did  so  on  a  very  small  scale,  and  depended  for  the  supply  of 
such  outside  articles  as  they  could  not  make  for  themselves  upon 
the  gromng  class  of  artisans  in  the  towns.  They  suffered  from 
heavy  taxation  taken  now  in  produce ;  from  oppression  and 
fraud  alike  when  the  amount  of  their  crops  to  be  paid  to  the 
treasury  (which  stood  to  them  for  the  government)  was  appor- 
tioned ;  from  official  demands  upon  their  labour  to  keep  up  the 
highways  and  public  works  after  a  fashion ;  and  from  the  in- 
creasing difficulties  of  transport  as  the  great  military  roads  fell 
into  decay.  So  serious  did  this  last  matter  become,  that  it  was 
calculated  that  a  distance  of  thirty  miles  from  the  centre  where 
the  agricultural  produce  was  to  be  stored  fully  doubled  its  cost 
at  market. 

There  was  thus  an  apparent  return  all  along  the  line  to  the 
ancient  form  of  natural  production — that  is,  production  for  use 
and  exchange  only  of  the  surplus — ^which  had  existed  before 
the  period  of  great  invasions  and  conquests  transformed  the 
bulk  of  Roman  economy.  The  small  cultivator  or  colonist 
might  or  might  not  have  one  or  more  slaves  at  his  command  as 
in  old  times.  But  slave  labour  was  gradually  ceasing  to  be  the 
dominant  factor  in  the  West  and  still  more  gradually  in  the  East. 
The  land  was  the  basis  of  the  entire  social  structure.  From  it 
alone  could  the  necessaries  of  life  be  directly  obtained.  The 
cities  and  towns  were  required  to  supplement,  not  to  supplant, 
the  domestic  economy.  There  was  no  industrial  agriculture,  no 
production  of  commodities  for  sale  on  a  large  scale.  After,  as 
before,  the  supremacy  of  slavery,  "  the  great  mass  of  the  popula- 
tion had  very  modest  ideals,  a  great  simplicity  of  life,  very 
moderate  aspirations  regardless  of  comfort;  so  industry  remained 
at  a  minimum,  the  economies  of  life  were  stable,  immovable, 
based  on  the  normal  satisfaction  of  equal  needs.  This  is  the 
mass  which  impressed  itself  on  the  general  social  economy  and 


102  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

not  the  small  minority  who  led  a  life  of  artificial  luxury,  which 
the  most  diverse  imported  products  supplied  the  means  for, 
but  which  did  not  affect  in  the  least  the  local  economy."  As 
was  said  by  Seneca,  who  was  able  to  regard  a  slave  as  a  man 
even  in  the  days  of  appalling  luxury  under  Nero  :  "  Riches 
for  the  few  means  poverty  for  the  many," 

Rome  in  her  prime  was  a  ruthless  plutocracy,  systematically 
draining  wealth  from  all  her  provinces  by  the  farming  of  taxes, 
exploitation  by  credit,  wholesale  usury,  contracts  for  the  troops, 
great  public  works,  and  the  sale  of  lands  confiscated  in  territories 
where  the  population  was  dense.  Rome  in  her  decay  was  com- 
pelled to  go  back  very  slowly  to  economic  arrangements  similar 
to  those  whence  she  had  emerged.  There  was  no  change  in  the 
main  methods  or  appliances  of  production  below.  These  went 
on  for  centuries  upon  centuries  without  any  marked  modifica- 
tion. That  is  the  great  and  crucial  difference  between  our  own 
period  and  all  previous  economic  history.  Our  methods  and 
appliances  of  industrial  production  do  not  remain  stationary 
even  for  a  few  years  in  succession.  Transformation  is  continu- 
ous. Capital  under  these  modem  conditions  can  dispense  with 
chattel  slavery ;  modem  wage-earners  are  the  veritable  hire- 
lings of  capital,  doomed  to  produce  surplus  value  for  the  capital- 
ists and  the  possessing  classes  by  penal  servitude  for  life  to 
the  capitalist  class.  Slavery,  in  the  ancient  sense  of  the  word, 
then  becomes  superfluous  and  uneconomical. 

Long  as  was  the  process  by  which  slavery  was  dethroned,  and 
numerous  as  were  the  minor  causes  which  led  up  to  its  final 
collapse,  the  chief  reason  for  its  steady  and  increasing  enfeeble- 
ment  was  the  decline  in  the  importation  of  slaves.  This  was 
inevitable,  as  the  area  of  profitable  conquest  was  restricted  by 
the  very  extension  of  the  conquests  themselves.  Supplies  of 
slaves  and  imported  accumulations  of  treasure  fell  off  simul- 
taneously. Consequently,  the  number  of  the  slaves  to  be 
bought  being  reduced,  the  price  of  the  remainder,  to  those  who 
depended  upon  slave  labour  either  for  production  on  large  pro- 
perties, pastoral  or  agricultural,  or  for  domestic  luxury  or  vice, 
increased.  There  were  no  longer  tens  of  thousands  and  even 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  trained  and  educated  men  and  women 
to  be  bought  as  slaves  at  Delos  or  other  slave  marts  at  very  low 
prices  :  prices  so  low  that  the  death  or  loss  by  escape  of  a  few 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  103 

slaves  was  a  matter  of  small  moment.  There  were  plenty  to  be 
had  cheap  where  the  others  came  from,  in  those  halcyon  days  of 
wholesale  human  exploitation. 

But  now,  when  slaves  were  scarcer,  their  replacement  at  high 
prices  became  a  serious  matter.  It  was  not  even  profitable  to 
neglect  them,  to  maltreat  them,  or  to  work  them  to  death.  And 
at  the  same  time  that  there  were  fewer  slaves  to  buy,  and  they 
were  more  costly  to  purchase,  money,  which  alone  would  be 
received  in  exchange  for  slaves,  was  harder  and  harder  to  come 
by  and  more  valuable  when  obtained.  Hence  the  scarcity  of 
slaves  and  the  scarcity  of  the  precious  metals  both  told  for  once 
in  the  same  direction,  and  slaves  became  very  costly.  For  the 
systematic  breeding  of  slaves  for  sale,  or  to  supply  their  loss 
from  various  causes,  appears  never  to  have  been  scientifically 
practised  on  a  large  scale  in  the  Roman  Empire.  So  that  the 
slave  mart  depended  for  its  supply  almost  exclusively  upon 
captures  in  war,  razzias  on  land,  and  piracy,  all  of  which 
methods  for  procuring  hirnian  cattle  had  been  greatly  reduced 
in  efficiency.  Slaves,  consequently,  both  as  a  class  and  as 
individuals,  became  more  and  more  valuable. 

By  degrees  their  keep  also  became  more  expensive.  For, 
owing  to  the  reduction  of  supply,  the  price  of  grain  was  rising 
in  common  with  other  articles  of  necessity.  The  famous  law  of 
the  maximum  formulated  by  the  great  Emperor  Diocletian, 
whether  it  succeeded  in  producing  its  intended  effect  or  not, 
proves  conclusively  that  the  cost  of  the  necessaries  of  life  had 
risen  in  the  general  market — whether  the  agricultural  produce 
had  been  raised  by  the  slaves  or  freemen — to  a  level  which 
imperilled  the  economic  stability  of  the  Empire.  Whatever 
view  may  be  taken  of  that  remarkable  decree,  which  was 
considered  so  important  by  its  author  that  it  was  recorded  on 
stone  monuments  throughout  the  Empire,  it  is  clear  that  it  was 
intended  to  control  the  prices  of  necessaries  of  life  in  the  interest 
of  consumers  both  slave  and  free  :  to  avert  a  serious  food  crisis, 
in  short. 

Our  own  recent  experiences  in  Great  Britain,  which,  like 
ancient  Rome,  is  mainly  dependent  upon  foreign  sources  for 
its  wheat  supply,  enable  us  to  understand,  far  more  clearly  than 
before,  the  purport  of  such  an  enactment.  The  cost  of  food  rose 
terribly  high ;    therefore  the  calm,  calculating  statesman  who 


104  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

ruled  the  Roman  Empire  from  his  palace  at  Salona  (Spalato) 
issued  his  rescript  to  maintain  a  seasonable  level  of  prices. 
Manifestly,  therefore,  slaves  in  the  cities,  who  could  not  produce 
their  own  keep  from  the  land,  were  much  more  expensive  to 
maintain  than  at  an  earlier  date.  This  not  only  still  further 
increased  the  permanent  price  of  a  slave,  when  purchased,  but 
had  its  effect  in  decreasing  his  economic  worth  in  comparison 
with  the  service  of  free  labourers,  who  could  be  engaged  to  work 
for  wages ;  and,  except  in  Rome,  were  destitute  of  anything  to 
fall  back  upon  in  time  of  privation. 

Hence  the  growing  tendency  to  manumission  on  purely 
economic  grounds.  For  the  slave-owner  who  manumitted  his 
slaves  got  rid  of  the  responsibility  for  their  maintenance  and 
relieved  himself  of  the  cost  of  their  replacement.  But  then 
some  manumitted  slaves,  unless  they  had  been  in  specially 
advantageous  positions  where  their  peculium  or  admitted  per- 
sonal gains  secured  to  them  by  custom  had  been  large,  found 
themselves  in  bondage  to  their  necessities,  as  freed  men  attached 
to  the  great  house,  or  as  freemen  generally,  to  the  same  extent 
practically  as  when  they  were  slaves.  In  order  merely  to  live 
they  had  to  find  employment.  For  this  reason  the  competition 
between  free  labour  and  slave  labour  became  more  keen ;  and 
the  balance  turned  in  favour  of  free  unattached  workers,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  temporary,  or  even  the  permanent, 
employer.  The  privileged  proletarians,  also,  though  despising 
labour  as  degrading  to  Roman  citizens,  were  forced  to  work  in 
order  to  earn  their  keep.  Thus  slavery,  in  its  many  ups  and 
downs  in  its  conflict  with  free  labour,  in  town  and  in  country,  in 
domestic  service  and  artisan  employments,  became  by  degrees 
less  relatively  useful. 

But  when  slaves  became  less  numerous,  more  valuable  and 
increasingly  dear  to  maintain,  they  gained  in  status  even  when 
not  manumitted,  in  many  cases  prior  to  their  manumission. 
Rich  slaves  who  had  the  ear  of  their  masters  in  business  became 
more  conmion.  Public  slaves  who  performed  public  duties 
could  not  be  regarded  permanently  as  much  below  the  level  of 
the  freemen  or  citizens  for  whom  they  acted  as  State  function- 
aries. Still  less  could  the  distinction  be  permanently  main- 
tained when  citizens  were  subjected  to  forced  labour,  which, 
while  it  lasted,  put  them  virtually  on  the  same  level  as  the  slaves 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  105 

themselves.  Moreover,  in  the  very  corporations  among  free 
workers,  which  were  kept  up  in  order  to  secure  their  collective 
and  personal  advantages,  these  trade  combinations  had  the 
sympathy,  help,  and  at  times  the  active  co-operation  of  slaves. 
In  this  wise  throughout  Roman  society,  under  the  declining 
Empire,  the  free  labour  of  coloni  and  peasant  proprietors  was 
displacing  sla\e  labour  in  the  agricultural  districts  ;  slave  labour 
was  losing  ground  in  the  towns  by  manumission  and  competition 
of  freemen  who  worked  for  salaries.  Slavery,  in  short,  was  no 
longer  universal  and  indispensable. 

The  continued  opulence  of  the  very  few,  their  excessive 
luxury,  their  waste,  their  ostentation,  their  costly  festivities, 
hastened  on  that  economic  ruin  which,  while  it  increased 
poverty,  intensified  likewise  the  causes  which  told  against 
slavery. 

Simultaneously,  these  very  economic  causes,  by  raising  the 
status  of  slaves  and  rendering  their  better  treatment  advisable 
and  their  mere  value  considerable,  told  in  the  same  direction. 
Such  comparatively  small  improvements  as  were  made  in  culti- 
vation called  for  slaves  of  more  intelUgence  and  education,  who 
required  less  superintendence  and  took  greater  interest  in  their 
work.  This  was  still  more  the  case,  as  already  observed,  in 
town  industry,  where  slaves  could  only  hold  their  o\mi  against 
the  growing  competition  of  freemen  and  lately  manumitted 
slaves  when  placed  more  or  less  on  the  same  level  of  culture  and 
self-respect.  Similar  considerations  had  their  effect  throughout. 
Thus  slaves  were  treated  with  greater  humanity  under  the 
Empire  than  under  the  Republic.  Legislation  was  enacted 
in  their  favour.  They  began  to  be  respected,  not  only  in  life 
but  after  death.  Their  families  must  not  be  broken  up  by  sale 
under  Marcus  Aurelius.  Their  burial  grounds  were  held  sacred, 
and  this  although  gladiatorial  conflicts  and  other  cruel  practices 
were  still  maintained.  General  opinion  grew  favourable  to 
manumission  as  its  economic  advantage  became  more  and  more 
apparent. 

Here,  too,  legislation  as  usual  followed  the  course  of  material 
development  and  helped  to  strengthen  the  position  of  the  manu- 
mitted slaves  who  were  allowed  to  obtain  the  rights  of  citizens. 
Thus  ameliorative  measures  for  slaves  were  continuous  during 
the  reigns  of  all  the  later  emperors.    Not  that  the  later  Empire 


106  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

in  itself  was  any  more  really  humane  in  its  essence  than  the 
earlier,  as  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  torture,  though  nominally 
decreased,  was,  in  not  a  few  cases,  really  extended  by  bringing 
even  free  citizens  under  this  cruel  system  of  "  the  question  " 
when  they  were  accused  of  treachery  to  the  Imperial  polity  :  a 
form  of  indictment  easily  stretched  to  embrace  any  sort  of  case. 
It  was  not  sentimental  sympathy  with  suffering,  but  the  silent, 
growing  pressure  of  economic  necessity  and  the  consequent 
increased  influence  of  the  slave  class,  which  induced  so  stern 
and  ruthless  a  man  as  the  Emperor  Hadrian  to  enter  upon  a 
course  of  amelioration,  and  obliged  Diocletian  and  Galerius,  the 
active  persecutors  of  Christians,  who  were  mainly  slaves,  to 
carry  out  the  same  policy.  This  is  also  true  of  Constantine  and 
his  successors,  who,  with  the  exception  of  the  pagan  philosopher 
Julian,  were,  at  least  nominally,  Christians.  Thus  the  de- 
velopment went  on.  When  the  movement  had  begun,  and 
manumission  grew  common  and  advantageous,  then  the  effect 
of  the  social  evolution  as  a  whole  was  felt  in  the  field  of  morals 
in  particular.  Social  relations,  in  fact,  gave  birth  to  a  new 
and  higher  ethic,  which  previously  met  with  little  acceptance 
even  among  the  Stoics,  who  took  the  lead  in  theoretical  accept- 
ance of  a  more  elevated  humanity. 

Had  slaves  remained  cheap  and  their  labour  still  profitable 
under  the  old  oppressive  system,  had  the  lucrative  conquests  of 
rich  countries  with  large  accumulations  of  the  precious  metals 
continued  to  pour  almost  inexhaustible  wealth  into  Rome,  it 
is  little  likely  that  her  ruling  class  would  have  been  able  to  dis- 
cover that  even  the  worst  known  form  of  chattel  slavery,  in  the 
ruins  and  in  the  old  ergastulse,  needed  improvement.  When, 
however,  material  facts  produced  a  definite  economic  ciu-rent 
in  favour  of  improvement  of  slave  conditions,  then,  undoubtedly, 
the  higher  morality  thus  engendered  began  to  react  upon  the 
general  conscience  of  the  time ;  and  owners  of  slaves  were  in- 
duced to  manumit  their  slaves,  during  life,  or  at  death,  by  con- 
siderations which  did  not  so  directly  emanate  from  the  economic 
motives  that  affected  their  own  predecessors.  "  It  would  be 
a  psychologic  mistake  to  claim  that  always  and  in  every  case 
action  is  determined  by  the  view  of  immediate  and  material 
utility.  As  men's  conditions  of  existence  change,  their  views, 
their   conceptions,   their   opinions,   their   consciences    change. 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  107 

Ideas  are  transformed  as  the  material  conditions  of  production 
are  transformed.  Revolutionary  ideas  in  human  affairs  mean 
that  the  elements  of  the  new  society  are  forming  in  the  old.'* 
Institutions  and  laws  connect  with,  and  are  by  degrees  forced 
to  accommodate  themselves  to,  the  new  economic  and  social 
development,  though  the  superstructure  may  vary  owing  to  the 
varying  surroundings.  Hence  great  social  changes  appear  to 
be  the  conscious  action  of  intelligent  men  who  are  working  to 
bring  about  a  state  of  society  already  conceived  in  their  own 
minds.  But  these  social  changes  are  really  due  to  the  material 
and  economic  causes  germinating  within,  when  a  new  form  of 
production,  with  its  social  and  economic  relations,  is  developing 
side  by  side  with,  and  gradually  replacing,  an  older  form.  But 
human  psychologic  conceptions  nevertheless  react  upon  and 
sometimes  even  anticipate  the  material  results. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  (2) 

Thus,  even  so  early  as  the  third  and  fourth  century  of  our  era, 
slavery  was  gradually  but  certainly  ceasing  to  be  the  dominant 
economic  force  in  the  Roman  Empire.  That  is  now  clear  to  us. 
It  was  not  appreciated  at  the  time.  Rarely  in  history  does 
any  ruling  minority  understand  the  stage  at  which  it  has 
arrived  in  the  inevitable  process  of  its  own  decay.  Still  more 
rarely  does  the  dominated  majority  apprehend  the  real  causes 
of  its  own  subjection,  or  comprehend  the  level  to  which  it  has 
risen  as  the  result  of  its  wholly  unconscious  social  development. 
So  with  slaves  and  slavery.  The  slaves  revolted  often  and 
fought  bravely  to  shake  off  the  chains  of  intolerable  economic, 
social  and  personal  oppression.  But  even  when  they  tempor- 
arily succeeded  they  saw  no  way  of  escape  from  the  system 
which  crushed,  tortured  and  butchered  them,  save  by  putting 
their  masters  under  the  same  dictation  from  which  they  had 
suffered  themselves.  Their  revolts  were  in  the  main  unsuccess- 
ful, because  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  their  emancipation. 
They  sacrificed  themselves  bootlessly,  in  the  long  record  of  the 
martyrdom  of  man  to  the  ignorance  and  cruelty  of  his  own 
species,  unconsciously  and  horribly  working  its  way  onwards 
and  upwards  to  a  final  relief  from  subjection.  But  this  de- 
velopment could  only  come  centuries  upon  centuries  later, 
under  economic  conditions  which  the  ablest  brains  of  all  time 
could  not  anticipate ;  conditions  which  we  ourselves  can  barely 
grasp  even  when  we  have  the  entire  system  functioning  around 
us. 

What,  however,  the  most  justifiable,  well-organised  and  well- 
led  upheavals  of  the  slaves  in  Italy,  Sicily,  Gaul  and  elsewhere 
could  not  achieve,  notwithstanding  the  courage  displayed  and 
the  greatness  of  the  gladiator  Spartacus,  was  brought  about  in 
the  coiu^e  of  hundreds  of  years  by  the  unseen  growth  of  economic 
and  social  forces  below.     Slavery  was  slowly  eaten  out,  though 

lo8 


SLAVERY  IX  DECLINE  109 

not  only  sert'doni,  its  successor,  but  actual  slavery  itself,  has 
survived,  even  in  Europe,  to  modern  times.  The  economic 
causes  of  decay  and  downfall  were  constantly  at  work,  while 
the  Empire  still  maintained  an  aspect  of  grandeur  and  perman- 
ence which  deluded  even  the  invaders  who  were  compassing  its 
final  destruction. 

The  causes  of  the  decay  and  downfall  of  Roman  slavery  may 
then  be  thus  smnmed  up  in  brief : 

1.  The  cessation  of  the  large  supply  of  slaves  by  conquest 
^^'hich  had  filled  the  slave  marts  with  civilised  slaves  in  the 
successful  wars  of  the  Republic  and  the  early  Empire. 

2.  The  increased  cost  of  high-class  slaves  owing  to  their 
scarcity. 

3.  The  falling  off  in  the  acquisition  of  treasure  from  without, 
A\hen  Rome  had  overrun  and  pillaged  the  principal  wealth- 
accumulating  slave  comitries  of  antiquity,  thus  gradually  de- 
pleting the  cash  needed  for  payment  of  slaves  and  other  luxuries. 

4.  The  increased  cost  of  the  keep  of  slaves,  due  to  higher 
prices  of  cereals. 

5.  Manumission  of  slaves  owing  to  these  economic  causes 
and  the  rising  status  of  slaves  under  the  late  Empire. 

6.  Free  labourers  increasing  and  becoming  economically  more 
effective  as  (a)  cultivators  on  the  soil,  (6)  artisans  in  the  towns. 

7.  The  scarcity  of  precious  metals  destroying  the  monetary 
economy. 

8.  The  consequent  return  to  natural  and  family  economy 
on  the  land  by  free  farmers  and  free  coloni,  the  latter  bemg  the 
forerunners  of  the  serfs.  These  farmers  on  participation  in  pro- 
duct were  in  all  senses  free,  when  their  dues  were  paid  to  the 
proprietors,  and  their  services  had  been  performed  for  the  State. 

9.  The  enormous  cost  of  transport  which  increased  as  roads 
fell  into  disrepair  and  rendered  production  by  slaves  of  luxuries 
for  sale  more  and  more  miprofitable. 

Simultaneously  with  this  enfeeblement  and  decay  of  the  slave 
system  the  whole  economic  arrangements  of  the  Empire  were 
undergoing  a  slow  but  relentless  process  of  change.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  scarcity  of  money  increased  the  power  of  those 
who  possessed  it ;  and  thus,  more  especially  in  relation  to  land, 
enhanced  the  crushing  weight  of  mortgages  and  put  the  debtor 
at  the  mercy  of  the  creditor,  while  the  value  of  the  land  was 


110  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

diminished.  On  the  other  hand,  this  very  scarcity  of  money 
forced  the  return  to  small  cultivation  and  rendered  inevitable, 
as  we  have  seen,  payment  in  kind.  Produce  by  degrees  re- 
placed money  for  all  purposes  of  payment.  Taxes  in  kind. 
Tributes  in  kind.  Landlords'  dues  in  kind.  Land  tax  in  kind. 
Salaries  in  kind.  General  payments  in  kind.  And  while  all 
this  was  going  on  organisation  was  deteriorating,  and  roads  were 
becoming  steadily  worse.  The  flourishing  Rome  of  the  Republic 
and  early  Empire  was  falling  into  a  ruinous  state.  The  East  was 
gaining  ground  upon  the  West,  and  the  removal  of  the  capital 
of  the  Empire  by  Constantine  was  only  a  more  complete 
announcement  of  the  policy  of  neglect  of  Rome,  which  had 
been  pursued  by  his  predecessors  ;  while  the  civil  wars  for 
personal  dominance  served  to  deepen  still  further  the  increasing 
poverty  of  the  State.  Slavery  was  by  no  means  dead ;  there 
was  wealth  still  in  the  Eastern  Empire ;  but  a  completely  new 
social  organisation  was  growing  up  out  of  the  downfall  of  the 
old,  when  the  succession  of  barbarian  invasions  brought  a  new 
and,  economically  and  socially  speaking,  reactionary  element 
into  play.  The  old  Rome  was  virtually  in  ruins,  and  recon- 
struction had  begun,  when  successive  tidal  waves  of  barbarian 
tribes  and  hordes  flooded  in  upon  all  portions  of  the  Empire — 
probably  a  result  of  a  turnover  on  its  side  of  the  huge  giant  we 
know  as  China ;  a  movement  of  Asian  humanity  whose  causes 
we  still  do  not  comprehend. 

It  has  been  common  practice  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
incoming  of  these  peoples,  with  their  fine  physical  energy  and 
unexhausted  vigour,  breathed  new  life  into  the  decadent 
economic  and  social  forms  of  a  great  civilisation  in  decay. 
Even  Marx  and  Engels  were  of  that  opinion.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  this  view  is  incorrect.  The  Huns,  the  Goths,  the 
Franks,  the  Visigoths  and  the  rest  of  the  invaders,  who  them- 
selves held  slaves,  were  admittedly  at  a  lower  stage  of  hmnan 
development  than  the  populations  whose  armies  they  rarely 
defeated  in  the  open  field,  but  whose  social  organisation  was  no 
longer  sufficiently  powerful  to  resist  persistent  attacks  by  over- 
whelming nmnbers.  These  great  tribes  were  all  of  them  still  in 
the  status  of  gentile  development ;  they  had  none  of  them 
reached  the  point  of  civilisation.  Not  only  so,  but  their  whole 
social  system  was  incapable  of  absorbing  into  itself  the  much 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  111 

more  highly  advanced  organised  community  upon  which  they 
imposed  themselves.  Consequently,  their  influence  upon  the 
populations  which  came  under  their  domination  was  in  no  sense 
progressive,  but  on  the  contrary  reactionary.  The  conquered, 
so  far  from  being  absorbed  by  the  conquerors,  in  the  long  run  ab- 
sorbed and  civilised  them.  But  this  was  the  work  of  centuries. 
And  it  is  the  extreme  difficulty  of  following  the  steps  of  tliis 
long  process  which  renders  the  history  of  the  so-called  Dark 
Ages  so  obscure  even  now. 

The  complete  overthrow  of  slavery  seems  to  have  been 
checked,  rather  than  hastened,  by  the  advent  of  the  barbarians. 
The  free  peasant  farmers,  the  coloni  and  the  free  workers  of  the 
cities,  who  were  going  forward  hand  in  hand  into  a  fresh  com- 
bination, the  details  of  which  we  can  now  only  surmise,  found 
themselves  submerged  by  an  influx  of  uncultured  and  barbarous 
strangers,  whom  they  could  not  understand,  and  whose  methods 
of  warfare  entailed  in  many  instances  wholesale  destruction  of 
what  was  most  useful  and  beautiful  even  in  the  decadent  period 
of  their  own  civilisation.  Not  until  the  medley  of  races  and 
systems  thus  jumbled  up  together  was  clarified,  in  some  degree, 
by  the  quasi-civilising  of  the  invaders,  did  the  advance  re- 
commence. This  was,  in  fact,  what  might  have  been  expected. 
A  higher  development  of  human  society  may  conceivably 
influence,  transform  and  by  degrees  uplift  a  lower,  but  there  is 
no  instance  in  the  history  of  the  race  where  the  imposition  of  a 
lower  form  upon  a  higher  has  aided  progress.  Nor  is  there  any 
more  convincing  instance  of  the  latter  truth  than  the  successful 
invasion  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  its  decline  by  the  barbarians 
from  without.  This  has  always  been  the  popular  idea,  and  the 
growing  science  of  sociology,  in  tliis  as  in  some  other  cases, 
confirms  the  popular  instinct. 

Out  of  tliis  period  of  barbarian  conquests  the  next  form  of 
hmuan  servitude,  feudalism  and  serfdom,  gradually  established 
itself ;  though  in  Gaul,  long  prior  to  these  conquests,  a  somewhat 
similar  form  of  social  relations  had  grown  up.  The  coloni  and 
even  the  small  free  cultivators  were  at  hand  to  constitute  the 
basis  of  such  a  system  of  personal  opposed  to  slave,  or  pecmiiary, 
domination,  as  the  prevailing  form  of  human  exploitation,  even 
though  both  forms  existed  at  the  same  time. 

Just  as  one  important  section  of  the  historians  of  economic 


112  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  social  development  seem  to  have  gone  wrong  about  the 
beneficent  effect  of  barbarian  influence  upon  populations  which 
had  attained  to  the  level  of  civilisation,  so  another  set  of 
annalists,  belonging  to  a  very  different  school,  have  accepted 
a  view  which  is  demonstrably  erroneous  about  the  power  exer- 
cised by  Christianity  in  the  whole  of  the  earlier  period  of  the 
decline  of  slavery.  The  freedom  looked  for  by  the  Christians 
was  not  of  this  world.  It  was  an  individual  emancipation  from 
all  material  forms  of  existence,  to  be  realised  on  the  coming  of 
the  Clirist,  which  they  confidently  expected  would  occur  within 
a  reasonable  period,  nearly  always  within  the  lifetime  of 
Christians  then  in  existence.  Their  hopes  ascended  to  the 
heavens  and  disdained  aspirations  which  were  of  the  earth 
earthy.  This  spiritual  consolation  of  eternal  bliss  hereafter 
far  transcended  any  gratification  to  be  derived  from  such  a 
transitory  advantage  as  manumission  or  complete  liberty  here. 
There  were  some  fanatics,  of  course,  who  took  a  more  natural 
view  of  things  and  desired  to  achieve  a  more  tangible  success,  or 
even  to  inflict  a  justifiable  punishment  upon  their  persecutors, 
by  direct  action  of  a  purely  sublunary  kind.  Whether  or  not 
these  zealots  had  anything  to  do  with  the  burning  of  Rome  under 
Nero,  they  probably  had  a  hand  in  the  three  attempts  made  to 
burn  down  Diocletian's  palace ;  while  their  unconcealed  glee  at 
the  ugly  end  of  his  co-Emperor,  Galerius,  showed  that  they 
cherished  a  bitter  hatred  against  those  who  despitefuUy  used 
them.  In  fact  the  usual  incapacity  to  divorce  the  flesh  from 
the  spirit  manifested  itself  in  early  Christianity  as  in  other 
supernatural  creeds. 

But  although  Christian  propagandists  sought  for  and  obtained 
the  bulk  of  their  converts  among  the  slave  population,  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  the  Apostles  and  Fathers  of  the  Church 
declared  against  slavery  as  an  institution,  so  long  as  it  was  uni- 
versally accepted  by  the  rulers  and  great  ones  of  the  Empire  as 
a  necessary  portion  of  human  society.  Far  from  this,  the  slaves 
themselves,  Christians  though  they  were,  received  direct  orders 
from  their  most  active  leaders  to  obey  their  masters  in  the  Lord. 
Not  only  did  these  sanctified  leaders  counsel  submission  to  the 
prevailing  order,  but  Christians  owned  slaves  themselves,  and 
were  not  called  upon  by  the  Church  to  manumit  or  emancipate 
them.     In  fact,  at  a  later  date,  the  famous  St  Thomas  Aquinas 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  113 

formally  accepts  the  views  of  Aristotle  as  to  the  natural  growth 
and  practically  indispensable  necessity  of  servitude.  Later 
still  Christian  institutions,  under  the  direct  owTiership  and  con- 
trol of  the  Church,  were  very  slow  to  manumit  their  slaves  and 
serfs ;  and  in  reality  only  did  so  when  such  manumission  was 
economically  advantageous  for  the  better  cultivation  of  their 
landed  properties. 

Christianity,  in  short,  for  generations  regarded  chattel 
slavery  as  a  necessary  institution,  in  the  same  way  that  this  very 
religion  and  its  representatives  of  various  sects  look  upon  wage 
slavery  to-day.  Compensation  for  degradation  and  misery 
here  would  be  attained  in  the  shape  of  eternal  felicity  hereafter 
— a  most  conservative  and  consoling  view  of  himian  exploita- 
tion. But  Christianity  is  no  more  blameworthy  for  this 
tendency  to  accommodate  itself  to  the  prevailing  conditions  of 
the  time  in  the  matter  of  slavery  than  Fetishism,  Sun  Worship, 
Buddhism,  Mohammedanism  or  any  other  religion.  Only 
when  the  claim  is  made  that  Christianity  was  an  effective 
agency  in  bringing  about  the  downfall  of  slavery  does  it  become 
necessary  to  point  out  that  the  Founder  and  Fathers  of  the  pre- 
vailing Asiatic  creed  were  quite  as  little  disposed  as  the  priests 
of  Jupiter,  the  Stoic  philosophers  or  the  Emperors  of  Rome  to 
run  counter  to  the  legalised  slavery  of  the  day.  And  just  as 
the  latter  adopted  a  more  humane  etliic  when  slavery  became 
less  economically  advantageous,  so  the  Christian  Church,  very 
tentatively  and  slowly,  took  the  same  line,  as  soon  as  its 
leading  men  were  affected  by  the  humaner  views  bom  of  the 
change  of  economic  and  social  conditions. 

Then,  indeed,  we  may  freely  admit  that  the  nobler  sons  of 
the  Apostolic  Church  were  still  more  strongly  influenced  than 
their  heathen  predecessors  by  the  current  feeling  of  the  time. 
They  used  their  spiritual  powers  to  help  on  death-bed  manu- 
missions and  everyday  emancipation.  Humanitarian  psychol- 
ogy, which  may  have  somewhat  anticipated  the  full  material 
evolution  in  the  highest  minds  of  the  previous  period,  now 
became  the  common  property,  in  this  particular  department,  of 
all  decent  men  of  rehgion.  Yet  it  was  not  reUgion  but  economics 
that  inaugurated  the  transformation  which,  once  begun,  went 
steadily  forward  to  modem  times.  However,  in  our  own  day, 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in  the  Southern  States  of  the 


114  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

great  republic  of  North  America,  in  the  West  Indies  and  else- 
where, negro  slavery  was  widely  championed  by  the  clergy  of 
the  Christian  churches  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  antiquity,  then,  chattel  slavery  failed  for  economic  reasons. 
It  still  exists  where  those  economic  causes  have  not  come  into 
play.  But  the  change  even  in  ancient  Rome  was  very  various, 
and  the  increase  of  coloni  and  free  settlers  who  were  held  by 
tribute  from  the  soil  did  not  relieve  the  bulk  of  the  agricultural 
population  from  economic  servitude.  The  two  sorts  of  coloni 
were  under  the  harrow  of  landlords  small  and  large.  One  set  of 
coloni  who  were  definitely  attached  to  the  soil  were  in  effect 
little  better  than  slaves,  without  the  physical  chains  of  slavery. 
Their  persons  were  largely  under  the  control  of  the  proprietors, 
and  they  were  exposed  to  harsh  treatment  at  their  landowner's 
will.  They  were  so  absolutely  bound  to  the  soil  that  they  could 
be  sold,  as  cultivators  upon  it,  as  an  integral  portion  of  the  estate, 
though  they  could  not  be  thus  sold  apart  from  the  property. 
The  free  settlers  who  paid  to  the  owners  tribute  in  kind  were  in 
a  better  position.  But  even  they  were  subject  to  such  increasing 
insecurity  of  holding,  owing  to  the  power  of  the  landowner  to 
evict  at  his  good  pleasure,  with  no  redress  on  the  part  of  the 
tenant,  that  their  freedom  was  greatly  limited.  Moreover, 
there  was  always  hanging  over  them  the  likelihood  of  an 
arbitrary  increase  of  their  payments  in  kind  for  the  right  to 
cultivate  the  soil,  so  that  they  could  by  degrees  be  reduced 
to  the  status  of  the  bonded  serfs. 

Hadrian  and  other  Roman  emperors  endeavoured  to  protect 
these  coloni  from  personal  and  economic  tyranny  by  law. 
Legislation  was  passed  which  prevented  the  landowners  from 
exercising  unrestrained  rights  of  eviction,  or  increasing  the 
amounts  of  the  payments  in  kind.  These  enactments  told  in 
favour  of  the  free  settlers,  and  even  secured  some  protection  to 
the  bonded  serfs  until  the  break-up  of  the  Empire,  custom  coming 
in  to  strengthen  the  law.  With  the  influx  of  the  Germanic 
tribes  the  legislative  protection  necessarily  lapsed. 

There  was  thus,  even  at  the  most  advanced  stage  of  Imperial 
administration,  no  complete  abrogation  of  slavery.  It  had 
economically  and  socially  failed  as  the  basis  of  the  entire  struc- 
ture ;  but  it  still  remained  in  its  decaying  period  as  a  portion  of 
the  edifice,  though  its  harshness  of  outline  was  toned  down  and 


SLAVERY  IN  DECLINE  115 

its  injurious  features  were  ameliorated.  No  sudden  break  took 
place.  The  ehanges  were  gradual,  though  continuous,  and  were 
extended  over  ages,  during  which  retrogressions  occurred  that 
tended  to  obscure  to  observers  the  general  advance.  The  ad- 
mirable apophthegm,  which  throws  light  upon  so  many  of  the 
obscure  passages  in  human  history,  that  progress  in  civilisation 
invariably  comes  from  what  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as 
"  the  bad  side  "  of  society,  was  never  more  directly  applicable 
than  in  the  development  from  slavery.  Slavery  was  the  bad 
side  of  Roman  Imperialism,  the  side  of  the  oppressed,  who 
exhibited  all  the  mean  and  degraded  qualities  of  their  servitude 
save  in  their  exceptional  but  futile  revolts  against  this  slavery. 
Yet  from  slavery  was  begotten  the  economic  and  social  revolu- 
tion, accompanied,  but  little  influenced,  by  sporadic  upheavals 
and  violence,  which  paved  the  way  to  the  new  forms  of  serfdom 
and  feudalism.  There  was  not,  and  there  could  not  be,  any 
sudden  transfonnation  ;  all  who  attempted  this,  however  noble 
their  intentions  were,  however  useful  their  example  for  later 
periods,  nay,  no  matter  how  much  they  may  apparently  have 
helped  by  their  very  failure  to  anticipate  events,  in  truth,  rather 
aided  reaction,  for  the  time  being,  than  set  forward  the  hands 
of  revolution  on  the  dial  of  human  development.  Only  when 
the  stage  had  been  unconsciously  reached  where  fruition  was 
possible  could  the  ablest  and  most  self-sacrificing  of  our  race, 
by  understanding  the  material  and  social  facts  of  their  sur- 
roundings, mentally  react  in  some  degree  upon  those  sur- 
roundings; and  thus,  still  slowly,  but  none  the  less  usefully,  help 
to  lead  their  fellow-men  along  the  path  whose  mimediate  direc- 
tion and  ultimate  goal  they  alone  first  saw.  The  unforeseen 
and  uncontrollable  irruption  of  the  barbarian  hordes  and 
marauding  invaders,  like  the  ruthless  attack  of  the  Jews  upon 
Palestine,  of  the  Spaniards  on  South  America  and  Mexico,  or  of 
the  British  on  India,  are  exceptional  incidents  of  racial  and 
social  aggression  which  interfere  with  the  course  of  events 
locally,  but  do  not  check  the  general  advance. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD 

Exchange,  money,  usury  and  the  growth  of  the  merchant  class 
played  a  great  part  in  the  first  break-up  of  the  gentile  system  of 
society  with  its  communism  and  general  freedom,  and  in  the 
establishment  of  a  series  of  political  institutions  based  upon 
private  possession,  not  only  of  personal  belongings,  but  of  the 
plots  of  land  which  formerly  were  owned  and  cultivated  by  the 
gens.  The  origin  of  exchange  between  tribes  and  their  gentes 
with  other  tribes  and  their  gentes  was  everywhere  similar. 
What  I  have  called  the  practice  of  permissive  grab — a  request 
for  some  envied  article  by  one  tribal  chief  from  another,  which 
by  unbroken  custom  could  not  be  refused — or  tribal  exchange 
through  a  recognised  agent  among  widely  separated  groups, 
developed  into  more  or  less  systematic  barter.  This  barter 
is  to  be  found  among  nomadic  hordes  of  the  earliest  form 
of  organised  savagery,  such  as  the  Australian  aborigines.  Ex- 
change of  the  superfluities  which  might  exist  in  one  horde  for 
articles  required  for  use  or  decoration  by  another  horde  reached 
among  these  hordes,  as  is  alleged,  to  such  a  point  that  the  agent 
of  the  primitive  exchange  was  conceded  special  privileges,  in 
passing  from  one  horde  to  another,  in  order  to  enable  him  to 
effect  the  common  purpose.  However  this  may  be,  the  rudi- 
mentary form  of  exchange  was  tribal,  or  communal,  though  it 
might  be  conducted  through  elected  or  hereditary  chiefs  or 
other  tribal  agents. 

Such  barter  of  products  for  products,  without  any  medium  of 
exchange  whatever  to  equate  the  value  of  the  articles  desired, 
and  therefore  exchanged,  on  both  sides  of  the  tribal  commerce, 
may  be  observed  among  savages  and  barbarians  down  to  our 
own  time.  Barter  of  this  kind  has  been  the  rule  between  white 
men  and  savage  tribes  all  over  the  world.  The  chaffering,  by 
increase  or  decrease,  of  the  amounts  offered  between  the 
bargainers  went  on  until  both  were  satisfied.     As  between  the 

ii6 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       117 

savage  or  barbarian  tribes  thus  exchanging,  good  faith  was  the 
rule ;  and  even  white  men  were,  not  iinfrequently,  honest  in  the 
early  stages  of  such  transactions  when  trading  with  goods  of 
their  own,  which,  in  these  social  conditions,  had  little  intrinsic 
value  on  their  market  as  compared  with  the  articles  offered  by 
the  natives.  In  this  primitive  barter,  also,  there  was  little  room 
for  that  cultivated  art  of  adulteration  and  deception  which  is 
so  marked  a  feature  of  civilised  trade.  The  absence  of  a  medium 
of  exchange  reduced  the  whole  transaction  to  elaborate  haggling 
on  the  part  of  the  tribes  engaged.  But  continuous  barter  soon 
engenders  a  medium  of  exchange  as  a  matter  of  convenience. 
Here,  again,  we  may  admire  the  ingenuity  of  our  communal 
ancestors  who  thus  hit  upon  what  appears  a  highly  refined 
method  of  facilitating  transactions  between  peoples  whose  sense 
of  private  ownership  was  still  una  wakened.  This  medium  of 
exchange,  before  and  after  the  introduction  of  slavery,  appears, 
to  begin  with,  in  the  form  of  articles  of  use  or  decoration  easily 
portable  and  transferable,  such  as  shells,  whale-teeth,  wampum 
necklaces,  pieces  of  copper  or  skins,  packets  of  tea,  dried  fish 
and  the  like.  The  habitual  employment  of  these  things  as 
recognised  means  of  exchange  over  vast  tracts  of  country  was 
common  ;  and  some  of  them  can  be  observed  at  the  present  time 
performing  similar  functions. 

There  is  nothing  to  show,  however,  that  the  use  of  these 
tokens  in  trading  led  to  hoarding  by  individuals,  or  brought  about 
any  economic  or  social  domination  by  one  individual,  or  set 
of  individuals,  or  caste,  over  other  members  of  the  community. 
The  medium  of  exchange  was  used  as  a  medium  of  exchange 
only.  Articles  of  use  or  decoration  were  traded  away  for  so 
many  cowries  or  bits  of  copper,  and  these  same  cowries  or  bits 
of  copper  were  parted  with  again  to  obtain  different  desired 
articles  from  other  tribes.  Hoarding  for  the  purpose  of  further 
hoarding  was  unknown  ;  although  accidental  accumulation  was 
possible  and  gambling  or  betting  might  go  on  among  individuals 
who  had  a  supply  of  the  current  medium  of  exchange  in  their 
hands.  But  there  was  as  yet  no  application  of  these  stores  to 
purposes  of  further  accumulation  or  social  domination."  They 
were  used  for  trade  and  for  trade  alone. 

Cattle  gathered  in  large  herds,  tribally  owned,  seem  first  to 
have  given  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere  a  constant,  instead  of  an 


118  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

accidental  surplus  for  exchange.  This  surplus,  in  the  form  of 
cheese,  skins,  horn,  constituted  desirable  articles  for  human 
groups  at  a  lower  stage  of  development.  As  patriarchal  pro- 
perty superseded  gentile  ownership,  and  slavery  helped  to 
extend  the  size  of  the  herds,  exchange  became  continuous  and 
added  greatly  to  the  wealth  and  even  luxury  of  the  cattle-owners. 
But  now,  as  exchange  itself  took  on  an  economic  form,  the  cow 
itself  and  the  ploughing  ox,  when  fully  grown,  figured  through- 
out as  the  units  of  exchange.  This  development  was  very  long 
in  coming  about ;  it  was  also  long  in  its  duration  and  very  wide 
in  its  extent.  The  cow,  in  particular,  constituted  for  many 
centuries  the  chief  medium  of  exchange  among  the  populations 
of  Europe  and  Asia.  Here  again  the  accumulation  of  cows  and 
oxen  in  larger  and  larger  herds,  while  they  greatly  increased  the 
wealth  of  their  owners  and  enabled  them  to  keep  bodies  of  free 
retainers  as  well  as  slaves,  did  not  put  them  in  any  position  of 
economic  domination  by  hoarding  and  usury.  Cows  and  oxen 
as  means  and  units  of  exchange  were  used  solely  to  fulfil  that 
social  function,  in  the  early  stage  of  the  growth  of  commerce,  as 
other  units  referred  to  had  been  before,  and  contemporaneously 
— ^namely,  to  facilitate  transfer  of  useful  articles  and  luxuries. 
The  exchange  values  of  animals  were  roughly  established  from 
the  cow  downwards,  in  a  series  of  equivalents  which  varied  very 
slightly  over  long  periods.  Thus  one  cow  was  the  equivalent 
of  two  ploughing  oxen,  or  ten  sheep,  and  then  throughout  the 
whole  domain  of  articles  which  came  into  this  widespread  ex- 
change. Universality  of  exchange  on  the  basis  of  the  cow  unit 
can  be  fully  traced.  Gold,  which  was  discovered,  refined  and 
used  by  men  ages  before  silver,  first  supplemented  and  then,  as 
social  changes  advanced,  very  gradually  replaced  cattle  as  the 
principal  medium  of  exchange.  The  quantity  of  gold  at  the 
disposal  of  tribes  in  the  higher  stages  of  barbarism,  as  well  as 
of  individuals  in  the  earlier  steps  towards  approaching  civilisa- 
tion, far  exceeded  the  amounts  conmionly  admitted  in  view  of 
the  assumed  rarity  of  this  precious  metal  in  these  times.  But 
gold  itself  was  originally  taken  as  a  token  of  value,  and  used  as 
a  medium  of  exchange  of  products  in  all  markets  by  reference 
to  its  value  in  relation  to  the  cow.  And  the  standard  of  gold 
as  this  medium,  thus  established,  became  as  general  as  the 
cattle  standard  itself.     That  is  to  say,  it  was  constituted  and 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       119 

regulated,  as  to  its  equivalence  of  value  for  exehange  purposes, 
against  cows  and  oxen,  wliich  fonned  the  basis  and  criterion  of 
its  exchangeable  worth  :  it  was  not  gold  in  the  first  instance 
which  decreed  the  worth  of  cows,  oxen,  sheep,  etc.,  but  cows 
and  oxen  which  decided  the  value  of  gold. 

So  clearly  was  this  the  case  that  even  coined  money  bore 
evidence  of  its  origin  in  its  early  names  derived  from  cattle. 
The  pre-eminence  of  cattle  in  ancient  estimations  of  value  is 
shown  from  the  fact  that,  even  in  the  early  days  of  Rome,  the 
assessments  for  the  payments  of  taxes  in  coin  were  made,  not 
on  the  acreage  of  land  occupied  and  owned  by  the  citizen 
assessed,  but  on  the  number  of  cattle  he  possessed.  The  worth 
of  gold,  when  it  had  attained  to  this  position,  in  relation  to 
cows  and  oxen,  was  arrived  at  originally  by  measure  of  quantity, 
as  in  quills  full  of  gold  particles.  Later  it  was  determined  not 
by  quantity  only  but  by  weight.  This  weight  in  its  varying 
proportions  was  decided  and  checked  by  weighing  in  a  balance  : 
so  much  gold  against  so  many  grains  of  wheat  or  other  cereal. 

Now  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  from  the  confines  of  Europe 
to  the  remotest  parts  of  Asia,  the  unit  weight  of  gold  so  arrived 
at  was  practically  the  same  in  all  the  various  countries,  differing 
immensely  in  their  racial  characteristics  and  even  in  their  social 
development,  occupying  this  vast  territory.  The  value  of  a 
cow  in  gold  varied  slightly  from  the  weight  of  130  grains  to  135 
grains,  sometimes,  but  rarely,  rising  as  high  as  140  grains  of 
refined  gold.  So  far,  therefore,  from  the  pure  gold  standard  of 
value  in  exchange  being  a  modern  invention,  the  ox-weight,  as 
it  is  called  by  Mr  Ridgeway,  was  the  first  generally  recognised 
metal  mediimi  of  exchange.  Thus  the  weight  of  gold  which 
appeared  in  Syria,  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Palestine,  in  Italy,  in 
Egypt,  in  Greece,  in  Gaul,  in  Spain,  and  practically  everywhere 
within  the  then  known  world,  through  a  long  period  of  anti- 
quity, was  the  135  grains  of  gold,  used  as  the  standard  of  the 
cattle-gold  unit. 

But  a  definite  weight  of  gold,  in  its  original  ox-unit  of  130  to 
135  grains  for  a  cow,  was  an  unguaranteed  and  uncoined  medium 
of  exchange  only,  and  so  remained  for  a  period  which  we  are 
quite  unable  to  estimate.  And  this  small  weight  was  divided 
up  into  smaller  weights  or  portions  for  the  purpose  of  exchange 
against  other  things  or  animals  smaller  than  the  value  of  a  cow. 


120  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

The  full  significance  of  this  universal  equivalent  was  not 
appreciated  until  much  later.  Gold  was  in  some  regions  re- 
garded as  a  metal  for  use  and  decoration,  to  an  extent  which 
would  probably  have  been  fulfilled  by  other  more  plentiful  but 
less  easily  mined  metals,  had  they  been  available  with  the 
appliances  of  the  time.  The  quantity  of  human  exertion 
necessary  to  obtain  this  precious  metal  in  regions  where  it  was 
obtainable  was  not  reckoned  of  importance,  when  it  only  formed 
part  of  the  general  labour  of  the  community,  after  such  labour, 
apart  from  the  gold  miners,  had  become  sufficient  to  provide 
its  members  with  ample  food  and  other  necessaries. 

Those  people  who  brought  down  their  gold  to  trade  with 
others  on  a  higher  level  of  culture,  in  return  for  things  which 
they  desired  and  could  not  produce  themselves,  carried  out 
their  transactions  entirely  on  the  plane  of  barter  in  its  early 
shape.  On  the  one  side  the  articles  which  it  was  known  were 
wanted  were  shown ;  on  the  other  side  the  quantity  of  gold 
offered  for  the  coveted  objects  was  displayed.  Then  the  amount 
was  increased  or  decreased  on  both  sides  until  the  necessary 
equality  of  estimation  at  that  time  was  reached,  and  the  trading 
was  then  and  there  completed. 

Even  where  gold  was  obtained  in  a  society  which  had  arrived 
at  a  relatively  high  level  of  production  of  articles  of  use  or 
luxury,  a  long  period  elapsed  before  the  need  for  weighing  gold, 
or,  later,  silver,  in  all  transactions,  was  obviated,  and  certified 
coinage  took  the  place  of  nuggets  or  grains  of  refined  gold  of 
specified,  but  in  no  wise  guaranteed  weights.  Gold  also,  however 
it  may  have  been  obtained,  still  performed  its  function  as  a 
medium  of  exchange,  because  it  was  itself  valued  highly  as  a 
metal  for  use,  as  well  as  for  decoration,  for  public  and  private 
purposes.  Thus  it  became  in  the  form  of  weight,  beginning 
with  the  ox-unit  or  rather  cow-unit,  by  far  the  most  convenient 
means  of  conducting  exchange  when  the  ruder  forms  of  direct 
barter  had  been  found  insufficient.  It  was  employed  in  this 
way,  to  an  extent  far  exceeding  what  might  have  been  looked 
for  among  the  peoples  who  thus  applied  it  to  their  trading, 
having  regard  to  the  stage  of  culture  which  they  had  reached  in 
other  respects. 

But  gold  was  still  confined  to  its  use  for  exchange  when 
brought  into  the  growing  world  of  trade.     Hoarding  of  gold. 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       121 

with  the  specific  intention  of  using  it  for  very  different  social 
objects,  Avas  as  yet  quite  unknown.  Accumulations  of  gold  there 
were  ;  display  of  wealth  in  gold  was  not  uncommon.  Instances 
of  such  amassing  of  treasure  were  to  be  discerned  both  in  East 
and  West,  in  Asia  Minor  and  Mesopotamia,  in  Gaul,  formerly 
a  considerable  gold-producing  country,  and  even  in  Britain  and 
Ireland.  It  was  known  among  tribes  which  had  not  reached 
the  highest  level  in  the  barbaric  stage.  But  the  fact  that  very 
valuable  gold  ornaments  were  often  buried  with  their  possessors 
shows  that  gold  had  achieved  nothing  at  all  approaching  to  the 
value  of  estimation  it  attained  later  on.  It  is  quite  inconceiv- 
able, for  example,  that  the  relatives  of  an  Enghsh  or  American 
billionaire  should  bury  with  him  his  weighty  gold  dinner  service, 
or  the  cherished  gold  ornaments  of  his  mourning  wife.  They 
would  much  rather  go  back  a  stage  in  historic  usages  and  show 
their  sorrow  by  immolating  his  domestic  servants,  or  even  his 
despairing  widow  herself,  on  the  tomb  of  the  deceased.  But  if 
gold  were  really  buried  to-day  with  the  corpse  of  the  deeply 
lamented,  as  a  testimony  to  his  value  when  living,  it  is  certain 
that  resurrectionists  of  high  standing  would  not  be  debarred, 
by  any  fear  of  the  supernatm-al  guardians  of  buried  treasure, 
from  looting  the  grave  of  the  dead.  This  "  sacred  hunger  for 
gold  "  did  not  inspire  the  early  possessors  of  that  precious 
metal.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  great  barbarians  and 
their  immediate  successors  used  gold  socially,  without  allowing 
it  to  use  them. 

Throughout  we  can  discern  that  this  use  of  gold  as  a  general 
mediimi  of  exchange  was  a  long  and  very  gradual  growth  from 
the  cow- value  of  the  specific  weight  of  gold  upwards.  The  cow, 
not  the  gold,  began  it.  Man  finding  gold  and  proving  it  to  be 
a  practically  imperishable  element,  easy  to  divide  and  recom- 
bine — most  effective  also  for  personal  display — did  not  set  to 
work  of  his  own  foresight  to  turn  it  into  a  medium  of  exchange. 
It  was  a  series  of  unwitting  steps  that  led  him  from  one  point 
in  this  evolution  to  the  next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next.  It  is 
usual  nowadays  to  assimie  that  trade,  through  a  medium  of 
exchange,  having  superseded  barter,  the  further  development 
to  the  unlimited  use  of  coined  money  was  inevitable.  But 
this  process  might  be  arrested  for  centuries  by  ordinance  from 
above,  by  deliberate  intention,  in  fact,  to  prevent  the  domina- 


122  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

tion  of  commerce  and  the  tyranny  of  the  precious  metals,  as 
we  see  in  the  case  of  China.  There  the  rulers  for  generations 
appear  to  have  foreseen  in  some  inscrutable  way  the  baneful 
influence  of  uncontrolled  money  power ;  and,  as  will  be 
mentioned  later,  they  checked  it  at  its  source,  by  closing  down 
mines  for  gold  and  silver. 

In  other  parts  of  the  world,  however,  and  especially  in  the 
basin  of  the  Mediterranean,  which  was  the  centre  of  Western 
civilisation,  the  course  of  economic  progress,  through  the  coinage 
of  the  precious  metals,  has  shown  man  gradually  overmastered 
by  one  of  his  own  instruments.  Gold,  first  in  rough  weights, 
and  then,  much  more  definitely,  stamped  and  certified  coin  of 
regulated  weight  and  fineness,  having  become  the  universal 
medium  of  exchange  and  the  measure  of  the  value  of  articles 
transferred,  became  also  the  representative  of  all  articles  of 
value  and  the  means  of  purchasing  them.  Then  it  was  that 
men  found  themselves,  quite  uncomprehendingly,  at  the  mercy 
of  their  own  creation,  handled  by  their  fellow-men.  Private 
property  in  this  dominant  but  practically  unknown  entity, 
money,  made  itself  felt  to  an  extent  previously  quite  unthinkable. 

Throughout  the  ancient  world,  and  very  far  into  the  modem, 
land  and  agriculture  formed  the  basis  of  the  entire  economic 
and  social  system  of  the  great  majority  of  the  states  and  empires, 
outrivalling,  in  their  pre-eminence,  all  other  departments  to 
which  human  industry  could  be  applied.  Whether  occupied 
with  breeding  and  depasturing  flocks  and  herds,  or  with  the 
production  of  cereals,  or  with  both  combined,  whether  as  a 
great  landowner  employing  slave  labour  on  a  large  scale  as 
owner  of  extensive  areas,  or  as  a  small  free  proprietor  cultivating 
his  plot  of  ground  to  supply  his  own  and  his  family  wants,  the 
landowners  and  the  land  cultivators  were  by  far  the  most 
important  elements  of  the  state. 

But  over  against  this  private  ownership  of  the  means  of  culti- 
vating the  land  and  the  land  itself,  which  arose  from  the  break- 
up of  the  old  gentes,  stood  the  great  and  growing  influence  of 
money  as  money,  which  produced  nothing  and  destroyed  much. 
Its  corrupting  and  corroding  economic  and  social  force  was 
exercised,  not  as  a  mere  medium  of  exchange,  to  equate  values 
both  of  which  were  not  present  on  the  market  at  the  same  time, 
but  as  the  universal  equivalent  of  wealth  of  every  sort,  and 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       123 

therefore  capable  of  buying  marketable  articles  of  all  kinds  from 
men  and  women,  downwards  or  upwards,  according  to  the 
estimation  of  the  period.  When  the  rich  man  desired  money 
for  luxury,  to  purchase  political  power,  or  to  gratify  clients — 
when  the  successful  aspirant  to  supreme  control  was  compelled 
to  give  bonuses  to  his  soldiery  or  to  defray  the  expenses  of  his 
triumph — then  money  was  his  primal  requisite.  When,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  poor  man  was  called  upon  to  pay  taxes  in  a 
bad  season,  or  to  purchase  seed  for  another  season's  sowing,  or 
to  replace  the  loss  of  a  cow  or  an  ox — when  the  citizen  required 
help  of  any  kind — then  money  and  money  alone  was  of  use  to 
him.  Thus  money  represented  in  the  hands  of  its  possessor 
real  wealth  with  which  he  controlled  all  other  apparently  acci- 
dental forms  of  wealth.  This  money  need  not  be  gold,  when  once 
the  money  form  of  universal  ownership  obtains  control.  Silver 
or  copper  may  perform  the  same  service,  or  disservice,  in  the 
early  stages  of  wealth  accumulation  and  currency  domination. 
For,  in  a  poor  society,  these  metals  may  suffice  for  the  uses  of 
the  surrounding  region  of  the  City  or  State  which  exercises 
control.  But  gold  is  universal,  and  gold  and  silver  together 
came  to  rule  the  old  world. 

There  were  two  great  means  of  accumulating  wealth  in  an- 
tiquity, outside  of  furious  slave-driving,  conquest  and  piracy  : 
commerce  (which  to  a  large  extent  comprised  systematic 
piracy)  and  usury.  "  Civilisation  created  a  class  which  took  no 
part  in  production  but  concerned  itself  solely  with  exchange — 
merchants.  Former  classes,  both  inchoate  and  complete,  were 
devoted  to  production  exclusively.  These  classes  divided  the 
producers  into  those  who  did  the  work,  and  the  men  who  con- 
trolled them,  or  into  producers  upon  a  large  and  a  small  scale. 
But,  in  this  case,  a  class  for  the  first  time  makes  its  appearance 
which  assumes  control  of  production  generally,  and  puts  pro- 
ducers at  its  disposal,  without  itself  taking  any  part  in  production 
at  all.  This  class  becomes  the  indispensable  go-between  for 
two  separate  producers ;  and  takes  toll  from  both,  under  the 
pretence  of  sa\ing  them  the  trouble  and  risk  of  exchanging 
their  products,  of  extending  their  markets  for  their  goods  and 
thus  becoming  the  most  useful  class  of  all." 

Such  was  the  commencement  of  the  great  historic  develop- 
ment of  the  much-belauded  trader  and  merchant  adventurer. 


124  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

To  him  gold  was  the  goods  of  all  goods,  whose  power  of  trans- 
formation endured  for  ever,  to  the  ceaseless  benefit  of  him  who 
possessed  it  and  used  it  to  his  own  greater  advantage.  Money 
speedily  accumulated  in  the  hands  of  merchants,  and  was 
employed  for  the  specific  purpose  of  obtaining  more  money 
by  continuous  purchase  and  resale.  As,  therefore,  exchanges 
increased,  with  the  growth  of  demand  for  articles  of  use  and 
luxury,  and  the  extension  of  the  markets,  so  did  the  commerce 
and  the  power  of  the  merchant  class  increase  with  their  affiliated 
departments  of  piracy,  slave-hunting,  slave-dealing,  acquisition 
of  precious  metals,  etc.  As  merchants  they  played  no  part  in 
the  production  of  the  goods  which  they  were  ever  ready  to  buy 
and  to  sell ;  but  they  held  all  producers  who,  for  any  cause, 
wished  to  dispose  of  their  produce,  or  to  obtain  advances  upon 
it,  in  the  hollow  of  their  hand,  their  rapacity  only  being  checked 
by  the  fear  that  they  might  cause  their  customers  to  divert 
their  dealings  into  another  mercantile  channel,  if  such  were 
available. 

Nor  were  these  early  merchants  of  the  Mediterranean  at  all 
behind-hand  in  economising  the  gold  and  silver  which  they 
amassed  and  avoiding  the  risk  of  transport  by  the  use  of  drafts 
and  credit,  the  employment  of  which,  to  swell  their  stock  of 
available  trading  capital,  they  had  learned  from  older  civilisa- 
tions to  the  east  of  them.  In  consequnce  of  this,  merchants, 
with  their  money  and  their  fleets  and  their  commercial  connec- 
tions, became  the  most  powerful  active  influence ;  and  gold  and 
silver  in  their  hands  displayed  a  faculty  of  economic  mastery 
over  their  clients,  and  even  over  independent  populations,  which 
was  little  short  of  a  mystery  to  those  who  suffered  under  it. 
For  merchants,  as  merchants,  performed  no  valuable  social 
service  whatever,  nor  did  they  as  a  class  run  any  risk  of  loss. 
This  or  that  master  of  the  art  of  buying  and  selling  goods  might 
speculate  unwisely  and  lose  his  acquired  money ;  but  this  only 
meant  that  the  corpus  of  his  pecuniary  property  was  distributed 
among  his  competitors  and  rivals  :  the  merchant  class  itself  got 
relatively  richer  all  the  time.  Relatively  richer,  because  even 
the  very  rich  of  those  days  could  bear  no  comparison  in  wealth 
with  the  vast  fortunes  accumulated  in  our  time.  And  the 
methods  of  piling  up  their  wealth  were  different,  being  based 
upon  a  different  system  of  production. 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       125 

But  the  merchants  were  powerful  and  unscrupulous  enough 
during  the  whole  of  the  long  period  when  mercantile  money — 
capital  in  its  childhood — held  sway.  Tyre,  Sidon,  Athens, 
Carthage  and  the  other  great  trading  cities  of  the  Mediterranean 
and  Asia  Minor  owed  their  wealth  to  this  source.  The  imiversal 
equivalent  in  their  possession  put  the  world  of  commerce  at 
their  feet.  Gold  and  silver  were  kings  of  that  commerce.  These 
wholly  impersonal  agents  of  almost  mysterious  influence  gave 
those  who  handled  them  as  go-betweens  unlimited  and  universal 
power,  such  as  even  great  emperors,  great  generals,  great  states- 
men scarcely  possessed.  Money,  once  enthroned  as  the  econo- 
mic deity,  before  whom  all  must  bow,  worked  its  way  against 
the  general  sentiment  of  humanity,  against  the  ethics  of  the 
highest  philosophers  and  the  abstract  brotherhood  of  religious 
teachers  into  world-wide  dominance,  in  a  manner  which  even 
we,  who  can  trace  its  rise,  expansion,  further  growth  and  subse- 
quent development,  can  scarcely  comprehend,  though  we  are 
now  approaching  its  last  term  of  control. 

What  underlay  the  entire  evolution  and  turned  a  useful 
human  instrument  into  an  impalpable  machine  for  human 
oppression  was  the  accumulation  of  this  social  force  in  private 
hands.  Nothing  can  be  more  social  than  exchange,  conducted 
for  the  benefit  of  two  sets  of  producers,  no  matter  what  the 
medium  of  such  exchange  may  be  ;  gold  itself  under  such  con- 
ditions can  work  no  harm  to  either  side.  Nothing  can  be  more 
anti-social  than  exchange  conducted  between  producers  for 
the  private  and  personal  advantage  of  a  third  party,  a  non- 
producer  who  owns  the  universal  medium  of  exchange,  gold, 
which  is  used  to  exploit  both  of  the  real  exchangers.  Gold 
itself  under  these  conditions  becomes  a  power  which  eludes 
human  control. 

Furthermore,  this  impersonal  and  unhuman  creation  of 
humanity,  and  greed  for  its  possession,  engendered  the  most 
cruel  treatment  of  all  slaves  engaged  in  mining  for  those  metals 
which  held  a  permanent  dictatorship  over  man  in  the  stage  of 
private  property  and  individually  controlled  exchange.  So 
long  as  slaves  were  obtainable  in  large  nimibers  by  capture  in 
war,  by  private  piracy,  by  organised  razzias,  or  by  purchase  on 
the  public  market  at  a  cheap  price,  there  was  no  limit  to  the 
ferocious   pressure   put   upon  them,   under   conditions  where 


126  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

organised  revolt  was  very  difficult  or  impossible,  to  extract  the 
greatest  quantity  of  gold,  silver  or  copper  they  could.  No 
other  consideration  whatever  entered  into  the  matter. 

Humanity  had  no  say.  The  one  and  only  object  was  to 
extract  as  much  of  the  universal  equivalent  as  possible  within 
as  short  a  space  of  time  as  could  be  achieved.  The  gain,  under 
the  conditions  described,  was  as  direct,  immediate  and  as 
promptly  realisable  as  it  is  in  the  mines  of  South  Africa  to-day. 
The  owners  of  the  mines  and  their  associates  were  thus  provided 
with  the  means  of  exchange  and  of  the  next  great  means  of 
accumulation  and  domination — ^usury — ^by  the  simple  process 
applied  daily  in  the  gold  mines  of  Egypt,  described  by  Diodorus 
Siculus  in  the  passage  given  below.  These  slaves  were  mal- 
treated in  order  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the  rulers  of  Egypt 
themselves.  The  same  system  prevailed  for  centuries  in  the 
Greek  mines,  in  the  mines  owned  by  the  Carthaginians  and 
afterwards  by  the  Romans  in  Spain,  Sicily,  Gaul  and  elsewhere. 
It  lasted  so  long,  in  fact,  and  made  its  appearance  at  all  times  in 
history,  where  the  value  of  human  life  ethically  and  economic- 
ally was  of  small  account  in  comparison  with  the  wealth 
acquired  by  wholesale  brutality. 

The  following  passage,  quaintly  translated  from  the  famous 
description  by  Diodorus  Siculus  of  Egyptian  gold-mining,  is  a 
fair  account  of  the  mining  of  metals  for  direct  profit  in  antiquity 
as  also  in  Peru,  Mexico  and  South  Africa  in  modern  times,  where 
the  miners  are  wholly  unprotected  from  the  greed  and  cruelty 
of  their  masters.  A  careful  study  of  systematic  slave-driving 
of  young  children  in  the  mills  of  Lancashire  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  shows  that,  less  than  a  hundred  years 
ago,  similar  atrocities  were  conrmionly  practised  in  the  industrial 
districts  of  Great  Britain  at  the  expense  of  defenceless  infants. 

"  On  the  confines  of  Egypt,  Arabia,  which  marches  with  it, 
and  Ethiopia,  is  a  spot  possessed  of  many  great  mines  of  gold, 
where  the  gold  is  got  together  with  much  suffering  and  expense. 
Since  the  earth  is  black  and  has  lodes  and  veins  of  quartz  of  sur- 
passing whiteness,  which  excel  in  brilliancy  all  those  natural 
objects  which  are  noted  for  their  lustre,  those  who  are  in  charge 
of  the  mining  works,  by  the  members  of  the  labourers  prepare 
the  gold.    For  the  kings  of  Egypt  collect  together  and  consign 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       127 

to  the  gold-mines  tliose  who  have  been  condemned  for  crime, 
and  who  have  been  made  captive  in  war,  and,  furthermore, 
those  who  have  been  ruined  by  false  slanders,  and  who  owing 
to  an  outburst  of  anger  have  been  cast  into  prison,  sometimes 
only  themselves,  but  sometimes,  also,  with  all  their  kindred, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  both  exacting  punislmient  from  those 
who  have  been  condemned  and  obtaining  great  revenues  by 
means  of  those  who  were  engaged  in  the  labour.  Those  who 
have  been  consigned  to  the  mines  being  many  in  number  and 
all  bound  with  fetters  .  .   ." 

[One  of  the  kings  of  Egypt  caused  at  least  80,000  persons  who 
were  only  suffering  from  physical  defects  and  illness  to  be 
thrown  into  the  horrors  of  the  mines  in  a  single  year  we  are  told.] 

"...  toil  at  their  tasks  continuously,  both  by  night  and  by  day, 
getting  no  rest,  and  jealously  kept  from  all  escape.  For  guards 
composed  of  foreign  soldiers  who  speak  languages  different 
from  theirs  are  set  over  them,  so  that  no  one  is  able  by  associa- 
tion or  any  kindly  intercourse  to  corrupt  any  one  of  the  warders. 
The  hardest  of  the  earth  which  contains  the  gold  they  burn  with 
a  good  deal  of  fire  and  make  soft  and  work  it  with  their  hands, 
but  the  soft  rock  and  that  which  can  easily  yield  to  stone  and 
iron  chisels  is  worked  down  by  thousands  of  hapless  beings. 
And  the  craftsman  who  selects  the  stone  takes  the  lead  in  the 
whole  process  and  gives  instructions  to  the  workmen.  And  of 
those  who  have  been  plunged  into  this  misery  those  who  excel 
in  bodily  strength  cut  the  glittering  rock  with  iron  pickaxes,  not 
by  bringing  skill  to  bear  upon  their  tasks  but  by  sheer  brute 
force,  and  they  hew  out  galleries,  not  in  a  straight  Unc  but 
following  the  vein  in  the  glittering  rock.  They  then,  living  in 
darkness  owing  to  the  twists  and  turns  in  the  adits,  carry  about 
lamps  fitted  on  their  foreheads,  and  changing  in  many  ways  the 
posture  of  their  bodies  according  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  rock 
throw  down  on  the  floor  the  fragments  hewn  and  this  they  do 
unceasingly  under  the  severity  and  stripes  of  the  overseer. 
But  the  boys  who  have  not  yet  reached  manhood,  going  in 
tlirough  the  adits  into  the  excavations  in  the  rock,  laboriously 
cast  up  the  rock  thrown  down  bit  by  bit  and  convey  it  to  the 
place  outside  the  mouth  of  the  adit  into  the  light.    But  the 


128  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

men  who  are  more  than  thirty  years  old  take  a  fixed  measure  of 
the  stone  mined  and  pound  it  in  stone  mortars  with  iron  pestles 
until  they  reduce  it  to  the  size  of  a  vetch.  From  these  the 
women  and  older  men  receive  the  stone  now  reduced  to  pieces 
the  size  of  a  vetch,  and,  as  there  is  a  considerable  number  of 
mills  there  in  a  row,  they  cast  the  stone  upon  them,  they  stand 
beside  them  at  the  handle,  in  threes  and  twos,  they  grind  until 
they  have  reduced  the  measure  given  them  to  the  fineness  of 
wheaten  flour.  And  since  they  are  all  regardless  of  their 
persons,  and  have  not  a  garment  to  cover  their  nakedness,  no 
one  who  saw  them  could  refrain  from  pitying  the  hapless 
creatures  owing  to  their  excessive  misery.  For  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  consideration  nor  relaxation,  for  sick  or  maimed,  for 
aged  man  or  weak  woman,  but  all  are  forced  to  toil  on  at  their 
tasks  until,  worn  out  by  their  miseries,  they  die  amid  their  toils. 
Wherefore,  the  unhappy  beings  regard  the  future  as  more  to  be 
dreaded  than  the  present,  owing  to  the  excess  of  punishment, 
and  expect  death  as  more  to  be  longed  for  than  life.  But, 
finally,  the  craftsmen  get  the  ground-up  stone  and  complete  the 
process.  For  they  rub  the  ground-up  quartz  on  a  broad  board 
placed  on  a  slight  incline,  pouring  water  on  it.  Then  the 
earthy  part  of  it,  melting  away  by  the  action  of  the  liquid, 
flows  down  along  the  sloping  board,  but  the  part  that  contains 
the  gold  adheres  to  the  board  owing  to  its  weight.  Repeating 
this  process  frequently,  at  first  with  their  hands,  they  gently 
rub  it,  but  after  this,  pressing  it  lightly  with  delicate  sponges, 
they  take  up,  by  these  means,  the  soft  and  earthy  part  until  the 
gold  dust  is  left  in  a  state  of  purity. 

"  Finally  other  craftsmen,  taking  over  the  collected  gold  by 
measure  and  weight,  put  it  into  earthenware  pots,  and,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  they  put  in,  a  piece  of  lead  and  lumps  of 
salt  and  furthermore  a  small  quantity  of  tin  and  they  add 
barley  bran.  Then  having  made  a  well-fitted  cover  and  having 
laboriously  smeared  it  over  with  mud,  they  bake  it  in  kilns  for 
five  days  and  as  many  nights  continuously.  Then,  after  letting 
it  cool,  they  find  none  of  the  other  things  in  the  vessels,  but  get 
the  gold  in  a  pure  state  with  but  a  slight  reduction  in  quantity. 
With  so  many  and  so  great  sufferings  is  the  production  of  gold 
at  the  frontiers  of  Egypt  completed.  For  Nature  herself  makes 
it  plain,  I  think,  that  gold  is  produced  with  toil,  is  guarded  with 


THE  RISE  AND  POWER  OF  GOLD       129 

difficulty,  is  most  eagerly  sought  for,  and  enjoyed  with  mixed 
pleasure  and  pain." 

Thus  it  seems  to  me  Diodorus  Siculus,  so  simply  and  directly 
Englished,  gives  a  more  terrible  account  of  the  real  horrors  of 
slavery  in  the  mining  industry  than  can  be  found  anywhere  else. 
It  calls  for  no  strain  upon  the  imagination  to  see  these  tortured 
himian  creatures  slowly  dragging  onwards  to  death  under  the 
whips  of  the  slave-drivers,  in  order  only  to  provide  an  article 
of  exchange  and  luxmy  for  their  masters.  But  wherever  slaves 
were  easily  come  by,  could  be  cheaply  replaced  in  quantity,  and 
cost  little  to  feed  and  superintend,  similar  hon'ors  were  practised. 
The  slaves  of  the  Romans  recruited  by  wholesale  capture  came 
under  the  same  law  when  production  of  any  sort  was  carried 
on  for  gain. 

This  method  of  mining  was  also  used  in  the  mines  of  Peru 
mider  the  Spaniards,  and  rapidly  worked  out  the  bodies  of  the 
unfortunates  sent  to  toil  in  them  by  the  tens  of  thousands.  This 
frightful  working  and  flogging  of  men,  from  which  there  was 
no  escape  but  mmatural  death  or  suicide,  forms  a  strange  con- 
trast to  the  gold-washing  and  simple  gold  extraction  from  gold 
seams  carried  on  at  the  same  period  by  gentile  tribes  for  decora- 
tion and  barter.  Gold  to  the  savages  and  barbarians  repre- 
sented no  more  than  a  metal  valuable  in  itself  for  its  durable 
and  decorative  qualities.  They  had  no  merchant  class  to  fasten 
upon  it  and  convert  it,  as  a  universal  equivalent,  into  a  means 
of  individual  exchange  and  of  private  accumulation  as  well. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY 

Out  of  mercantile  money  operations  and  the  hoarding  of  gold 
for  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  area  of  trading  arose  money- 
lending  and  usury.  Usury  was  the  second  great  factor  of  wealth 
accumulation  in  antiquity,  as  also  in  the  Middle  Ages.  And 
the  influence  of  the  moneyed  class  through  its  two  sections  of 
Merchants  and  Usurers,  which  were  not  infrequently  combined, 
became  so  powerful  that  they  were  able  to  procure  the  enact- 
ment in  their  own  favour  against  their  clients  and  debtors  of 
the  most  atrocious  laws  that  were  ever  placed  on  a  Statute  Book. 
Hence,  of  all  the  class  wars  and  economic  antagonisms  which 
have  made  the  history  of  human  society  and  civilisation  since 
the  beginning  of  private  property  the  perpetual  conflict  between 
debtors  and  creditors  was  one  of  the  most  bitter.  No  nation 
escaped  this  internal  disruption,  in  which  the  old  gentile  order 
was  underpinned  by  slavery,  private  property,  exchange  and 
usury. 

There  was  a  never-ceasing  economic  and  social  fight  between 
two  forms  of  private  property :  private  ownership  of  land  on 
the  one  hand,  private  ownership  of  gold,  lent  to  needy  pro- 
prietors of  the  soil,  on  the  other.  The  territory  of  the  Athenian 
peasants  was  at  one  time  palisaded  with  posts  recording  the 
mortgages  held  by  the  money-lenders.  All  Attica  was  in  pawn 
to  the  usurers  comparatively  early  in  the  growth  of  that  small 
but  important  state.  Debtors,  no  matter  in  what  manner  their 
debts  were  incurred,  were  liable  to  pay  to  the  uttermost  farthing 
the  highest  rates  of  interest,  incurring,  in  case  of  default,  at  the 
demand  of  the  creditors,  imprisonment  and  other  brutal  forms 
of  penalty.  This  wound  up,  in  the  event  of  the  debtor's  final 
incapacity  to  discharge  his  indebtedness,  with  the  right,  fre- 
quently exercised,  to  enslave  the  unfortunate  borrower  to  the 
usurer  himself,  or  to  sell  him  and  his  family  into  foreign  slavery. 
Hence  arose  a  relentless  economic  and  social  warfare  where  the 
usurers  proved  in  the  long  run  historically  successful,  but  which 

130 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY         131 

in  several  cases  brought  about  a  definite  revolt  against  the 
money  lords,  who  had  been  carrying  on  their  pohtical  and 
pecuniary  antagonism  to  the  free  peasants  and  the  gentile 
nobility  at  the  same  time.  To  preserve  the  entire  state 
from  dissolution,  the  rights  of  the  creditors  were  invaded  and 
overthrown  by  the  wrongs  of  their  debtors. 

In  Athens  two  revolutions  occurred  within  three  generations, 
one  mainly  social,  the  other  chiefly  pohtical.  By  the  first  the 
powers  of  the  creditors  were  simply  swept  away,  and  the  Govern- 
ment reheved  the  debtors  of  all  their  obhgations.  By  the  second 
the  new  political  constitution,  based  on  landownership,  and 
pohtical  power  founded  upon  ownership  of  land  irrespective  of 
any  gentile  relations,  created  the  democratic  state.  The  demo- 
cracy, of  course,  were  a  superior  class  of  citizens  over  against 
the  slaves.  What  occurred  in  Attica  happened  also  in  the  rest 
of  the  Greek  states.  But  though  debtors  might  be  temporarily 
reheved  from  their  burdens  and  made  free  men  again  at  the 
expense  of  the  money  lords,  usury  soon  resumed  its  ascendancy. 
No  legislation  could  permanently  check  its  advance. 

Athens  became  as  important  in  the  world  of  commerce  and 
money-lending  as  in  the  sphere  of  intellect,  art  and  general 
culture.  Corinth,  although  a  producing  as  well  as  a  trading 
centre,  attained  to  such  pre-eminence  in  the  domain  of  luxury 
and  elegant  debauchery  that  she  then  held  a  position  in  the 
civilised  world  like  that  which  Paris  and  the  French  Riviera 
hold  to-day.  Men  who  had  gained  wealth  from  slavery,  com- 
merce, piracy  and  usury  flocked  to  this  great  and  beautiful 
city  of  organised  pleasure  to  squander  their  gains  in  the  most 
costly  and  non-moral  forms  of  enjoyment.  Certainly  in  aU 
branches  of  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  however  unscrupulous 
or  cruel,  the  Greeks  were  past  masters;  and  the  Romans,  whose 
whole  literature  and  science  and  general  culture  were  due  to  the 
Greeks  also,  learnt  from  them  all  the  methods  of  amassing 
riches  in  free  and  conquered  countries  with  the  least  risk 
of  loss. 

The  colonies  of  Tyre  and  other  Phoenician  cities,  whose  wealth 
was  due  almost  exclusively  to  commerce,  were,  like  Tyre  herself, 
httle  more  than  trading  centres  of  greater  or  less  importance, 
with  the  exception  of  Carthage.  These  trading  centres  were 
minor  octopuses  drawing  their  wealth  from  persistent  exploita- 
tion of  foreign  producers  of  every  class.    At  times  they  derived 


132  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

huge  advantages  from  the  complete  ignorance  of  their  clients 
of  the  real  exchange  value  of  their  products  in  the  more  highly 
developed  society  of  which  Tyre  formed  a  part.  The  story  that 
gold  was  so  plentiful  at  one  time  in  Tyre  that  the  Tyrians  made 
their  anchors  of  gold,  is  doubtless  based  upon  the  tradition  that 
they  found  the  natives  of  Spain  in  possession  of  such  quantities 
of  silver,  and  ready  to  barter  it  on  such  very  advantageous 
terms  for  Tyrian  "  trade,"  that  the  Phoenician  mariners 
loaded  up  their  vessels,  to  the  extent  of  all  they  could  possibly 
carry,  with  the  silver  thus  cheaply  obtained. 

It  was  from  this  same  district  that  the  Carthaginians  after- 
wards derived  such  vast  supplies  of  silver.  It  is  said  that 
nearly  50,000  slaves  worked  in  one  group  of  mines.  Though 
this  number  is  probably  an  exaggeration,  it  is  certain  that 
great  quantities  of  silver  were  obtained  from  Spain,  especially 
from  the  mines  belonging  to  the  Barca  gens,  of  which 
Hannibal  was  a  chief.  It  was  this  wealth,  no  doubt,  which 
allowed  him  to  keep  up  liis  wonderful  seventeen  years' 
campaign.  Carthage  derived  her  supply  of  gold  from  West 
Africa,  where  the  native  tribes  on  the  coast  were  in  the 
habit  of  bartering  the  gold  they  obtained  from  the  auriferous 
sand  of  the  rivers  for  the  articles  they  desired  from  the 
Phoenician  traders.  This  business  was  done  on  the  primitive 
lines  of  chaffering,  which,  indeed,  were  practised  with  tribes 
at  a  similar  stage  of  development  all  over  the  then  civilised 
world.  This  gold  and  silver  then  enabled  the  Mediterranean 
trading  cities  to  gain  their  great  economic  influence. 

Commerce  on  a  large  scale  was  regarded  on  the  whole  as 
a  reputable  means  by  which  to  acquire  wealth,  the  process  of 
exploitation  of  producers  being  concealed  ;  usury,  the  lending 
of  money  in  order  to  obtain  more  money  in  return  for  the 
original  advance,  always  bore  a  bad  name  in  the  great  slave 
societies  of  the  West.  Aristotle,  who  stood  up  so  stoutly  for  the 
institution  of  slavery,  had  not  a  good  word  to  say  for  usury  or 
the  lending  of  money  at  interest.  In  fact  all  lending  of  money 
at  interest  was  stigmatised  as  usury.  It  was  "  money  breeding 
money,"  by  the  accident  of  owning  a  surplus  of  the  universal 
equivalent,  without  any  pretence  whatever  of  even  personal 
service,  productive  or  unproductive.  It  was  a  direct  trading 
upon  the  individual  needs  of  the  borrowers  on  security,  which 
began  by  engendering  hardship,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  and 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY         133 

finished   by  the  ruin  and   cruel    harassment  of  the  debtors. 
Therefore  usury  was  an  accursed  thing. 

How,  then,  has  it  come  about  that  the  lending  of  money, 
condemned  alike  by  the  philosophers  of  paganism  and  the 
fathers  of  the  Church,  should  nowadays  be  regarded  as  quite  a 
respectable  business,  when  practised  on  "  reasonable  "  terms, 
whether  on  a  large  or  on  a  small  scale  ?  The  change  of  view  is 
really  due,  like  nearly  all  the  other  modifications  of  opinion 
through  the  centuries,  to  the  change  in  the  form  of  production 
itself.  Suffice  it  to  say  here  that  lending  at  interest  in  modern 
civilisation  takes,  in  most  cases,  the  form  of  participation  in  profit 
or  income  gained  by  the  borrower.  It  rarely  appears  as  an 
actual  trading  upon  necessity.  When  it  does,  in  the  shape  of 
pawnbroking,  or  lending  at  very  high  rates  of  interest,  then 
society  generally  looks  on  such  transactions  from  the  ancient 
point  of  view.  That,  however,  the  debtor,  according  to  law, 
is  always  in  the  wrong,  and  still  Uable  to  personal  punishment  for 
non-fulfilment  of  contract,  is  clear,  since,  imtil  comparatively 
recent  years,  debtors  in  England  were  subject  to  close,  and 
frequently  to  permanent,  confinement  if  their  creditors  were  not 
paid.  Even  in  the  twentieth  century  debtors,  under  pretence 
of  "  Contempt  of  Court,"  are  still  subject  in  Great  Britain  to  the 
same  imprisonment,  though  this  penalty  is  presumed  to  have 
been  done  away  with  many  years  ago.  So  difficult  is  it  to  shake 
off  the  dominance  of  the  money  power  which  had  its  origin 
thousands  of  years  ago. 

But  the  operations  of  money-lenders  and  usurers  in  general, 
even  in  Greece,  Tyre  and  Carthage,  were  comparatively  in- 
significant beside  the  scope  of  these  pecuniary  operations  in  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  contrast  between  the  early  days  of  Rome, 
after  the  breakdown  of  the  gentile  relations  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  aristocratic  republic,  on  private  property  and  con- 
quest— the  contrast  of  Rome,  with  her  free  farmers  and  free 
citizen  soldiery  fighting  for  what  they  beUeved  to  be  their  own 
advantage,  and  the  Rome  of  the  great  foreign  wars  for  slaves, 
direct  plunder  and  wider  scope  for  trade  and  usury,  with  paid 
troops,  was  astounding.  The  intermediate  struggle  for  political 
power  between  the  aristocracy  of  the  gentes  and  the  plebeians 
who  were  attracted  or  brought  into  Rome  from  without 
resulted  in  the  gradual  victory  of  the  latter.  From  the 
first  Carthaginian   War   between  the   land-cultivating,   land- 


134  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

worshipping  aristocracy  and  people  of  Rome,  with  their 
growing  military  power,  and  the  great  Phoenician  commercial 
and  naval  plutocracy  of  Carthage  and  its  colonies,  to  the 
second  Carthaginian  War  and  Hannibal's  astounding  invasion 
of  Italy,  there  had  grown  up  in  Rome  itself  an  entirely 
different  view  of  trade  and  commerce  from  that  which  had 
previously  existed. 

The  money  wealth  of  Carthage  consisted  chiefly  in  silver, 
which  then  probably  bore  to  gold  the  relation  of  12  to  1.  Scipio 
after  his  victories  brought  back  from  Carthage  120,000  pounds' 
weight  of  silver,  of  probably  sixteen  ounces  to  the  pound.  This, 
taking  gold  at  the  above  ratio,  would  represent  not  less  than 
£675,000  in  gold,  an  enormous  sum  in  those  days.  In  addition 
there  was  to  be  an  annual  payment  from  Carthage  of  20,000 
talents  of  silver  for  fifty  years.  At  the  same  time  Rome 
became  possessor  of  the  fine  Carthaginian  dependencies.  These 
vast  territorial  gains,  besides  those  which  were  made  in  Italy 
itself,  planted  the  commercial  spirit  in  Rome  and  provided  the 
means  for  gratifying  it.  The  Romans,  then,  not  only  the 
plebeians  but  the  patricians,  turned  to  commerce  with  Sicily, 
Sardinia  and  Spain,  and  thus  began  that  career  of  world-wide 
vampirism,  allied  to  military  conquest,  which  attained  such 
marvellous  and  unprecedented  development. 

So  Rome,  having  defeated  Carthage  in  this  first  great  struggle 
for  domination  in  the  basin  of  the  Mediterranean,  was  herself 
captured  by  Carthaginian  methods  of  commerce,  afterwards 
supplemented  by  usury  to  an  unparalleled  extent.  All  the 
struggles  between  patricians  and  plebeians,  all  the  assassina- 
tions of  leaders,  slaughter  in  the  streets  of  Rome  and  in  the 
provinces,  proscriptions  by  Sylla,  wholesale  popular  vengeance 
under  Marius,  were  trifling  when  compared  with  the  effects  of 
this  ruthless  money  power,  which  now  spread  through  all  the 
recently  conquered  provinces.  The  vast  numbers  of  slaves, 
captured  and  sold  in  such  quantities  by  the  victorious  legions 
that  slaves  became  a  mere  drug  in  the  market,  the  treasures 
looted  from  the  temples  and  the  houses  of  wealthy  citizens  were 
all  of  small  value  compared  with  the  riches  extorted  from  the 
subject  populations  of  Greece  and  other  countries  by  the  swarm 
of  predatory  mercantile  agents,  money-lenders  and  farmers  of 
the  indemnities  and  taxes  who  followed  in  the  wake  of  the 
victorious  armies.    The  terrible  inflictions  of  war  itself  might 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY         135 

have  been  overcome,  lived  down  and  forgotten,  but  the  per- 
sistent drain  of  tribute  and  usury  by  the  merciless  blood-suckers 
who  settled  down  upon  the  provinces  engendered  a  hatred  of 
the  Romans  and  their  rule  which  led  to  ruthless  butchery  by 
the  suffering  natives  whenever  an  opportunity  for  revenge 
arose. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  great  war  against  Mithridates, 
in  which  Sylla  played  so  wonderful  a  part,  no  fewer  than 
100,000  Italians  of  this  type  are  said  to  have  been 
massacred  in  the  various  cities,  either  by  the  direct  order  or 
with  the  connivance  of  the  king.  The  numbers  of  the  victims 
thus  disposed  of  may  have  been  exaggerated,  but  that  the 
debtors  and  tax-payers,  having  got  their  chance,  made  the  most 
of  it  is  quite  certain.  Similar  revolts  were  of  frequent  occur- 
rence alike  throughout  the  successful  and  unsuccessful  periods 
of  the  Republic,  and  always  directed  against  the  same  class, 
but,  like  the  risings  of  the  slaves,  to  no  purpose  in  the  long  run. 
With  this  difference,  however,  that  the  money  power  had  come 
to  stay  throughout  the  whole  period  of  private  property  civilisa- 
tion, whereas  slavery,  in  the  form  of  chattel  slavery,  was  destined 
to  undergo  marked  modification.  The  success  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian wars  was  the  most  important  factor  in  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  old  agricultural,  aristocratic  Rome  into  the  Rome 
of  the  commercial  era.  Though  the  long  class  struggle  between 
plebeians  and  patricians  had  been  complicated,  as  in  Greece, 
by  the  antagonism  between  debtors  and  creditors,  which  intro- 
duced the  direct  pecuniary  element  into  class  warfare,  the 
debtors,  by  the  relaxation  of  the  law  and  cancellation  of  many 
of  the  debts,  had  gained  a  temporary  victory.  Nevertheless, 
prior  to  her  crowning  victories  over  her  great  rival,  Rome  was 
still  the  Rome  of  landowners  of  various  grades.  She  and  her 
allies  had  not,  so  far,  been  drawn  into  the  network  of  commercial- 
ism and  usury.  Rome,  in  fact,  after  her  success  against  Car- 
thagCj  had  to  go  through  another  period  of  crisis  before  her 
position  was  secured.  The  transition  period  well-nigh  ruined 
the  Republic. 

The  first-fruits  of  the  new  mercantilism  were  anarchy  at  home 
and  general  war  in  Italy  and  the  provinces.  Everywhere  the 
small  o^vners  and  cultivators  disappeared,  their  land  passed  into 
the  possession  of  a  few  great  proprietors,  and  usury  spread  like 
a  plague. 


136  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

"  A  small  oligarchy  of  great  and  little  capitalists  alone  grew 
rich  amidst  the  universal  ruin.  .  .  .  This  plutocracy  enriched 
itself  by  despoiling  mercilessly  Italy  and  Asia,  where  the  in- 
crease of  imposts  and  fraudulent  devices  of  the  financial  farmers 
of  the  revenue  and  taxes  impoverished  and  crushed  with  debt 
the  middle  class  and  the  people  ;  by  this  means  there  was  super- 
added to  the  gain  of  forcing  the  revenue  for  Italian  capitalists 
the  further  profit  from  usury  made  easy  and  from  the  trade 
in  men,  whom  they  caused  to  be  kidnapped  in  the  adjacent 
countries  and  sold  in  Rome.  .  .  .  Meanwhile  the  public  finances 
were  disordered  and  the  army  disorganised  ;  the  fleet  which  had 
beaten  Carthage  lay  idle  in  the  ports  of  Italy.  Rome  failed  even 
to  put  down  the  new  and  bloody  revolts  of  the  slaves  which  had 
broken  out  in  Sicily  and  Campania  "  (Ferrero). 

Such  were  the  first  effects  of  the  gro-\vth  of  mercantilism  in 
Rome.  The  great  popular  awakening  under  the  leadership  of 
the  peasant  of  genius,  Marius,  whose  defeat  of  the  Cambri  and 
Teutons  gave  him  practically  supreme  power,  was  wholly  unable 
to  check  or  direct  this  economic  influence.  Efforts  made  to 
attract  people  to  conquered  lands  soon  failed  from  the  sheer 
inexperience  of  agriculture  of  those  who  accepted  the  offers. 

Hence  it  happened  that,  when  Mithridates  began  his  attack, 
bankruptcy  and  disaster  stared  the  statesmen  of  the  Republic 
full  in  the  face.  There  was  danger  and  defeat  in  every  direc- 
tion. Devastation  throughout  Italy  and  distrust  elsewhere. 
That  Rome  should  have  surmounted  this  terrible  crisis  where 
barbarism  and  civilisation  seemed  successfully  combined  in 
arms  against  her,  and  misfortunes  in  the  field  had  to  be  met 
with  an  almost  empty  treasury,  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  her 
eventful  history.  But  surmount  it  she  did.  The  tide  again 
turned  in  her  favour.  The  influx  of  wealth  into  the  great  city 
transcended  by  far  anything  previously  experienced.  This 
wealth  consisted  in  a  mass  of  silver  and  gold,  with  art  treasure 
and  luxuries.  Rome  was  a  non-producing  or  at  least  a  non- 
exporting  centre  throughout.  Even  the  Italians  who  settled  in 
her  provinces,  and  devoted  themselves  and  their  families  to  the 
Romanisation  of  their  respective  districts  and  to  commerce  and 
usury,  acted  as  agents  draining  away  these  riches  amassed  from 
the  plunder  of  the  known  world. 

In  this  respect  Rome  differed  from  other  great  cities  of  the 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY         137 

Mediterranean  basin — Carthage,  Alexandria,  Corinth,  Antioch, 
Marseilles,  even  Athens,  though  they  got  wealthy  through 
commerce,  were  able  to  meet  their  imports  in  part  by  genuine 
products  of  their  own.  Not  so  Rome.  All  the  trade  with  her 
was  in  one  direction  :  towards  this  huge  vampire  city  which 
sucked  in  wealth  and  obtained  her  supplies  from  Egypt  and 
elsewhere  by  reason  of  tribute  and  taxes  imposed  as  the  result 
of  conquest.  Money  capital,  therefore,  used  in  Roman  com- 
merce was  wholly  unproductive.  Commerce  helped  to  take 
back  from  Rome  its  money ;  and  that  tended  in  periods  of  dis- 
turbance to  bring  about  pecuniary  crises  of  utmost  intensity  at 
the  centre.  For  the  only  capital  which  Rome  possessed  was 
commercial  capital  and  money-lenders'  capital,  in  the  shape  of 
the  precious  metals.  Commercial  capital,  however,  used  in 
connection  with  a  trade  which  is  all  from  the  circumference  to 
the  centre  cannot  by  any  possibility  increase  the  wealth  of 
that  centre.  The  only  means,  therefore,  by  which  Rome  could 
enlarge  her  resources  was  by  lending  money,  instead  of  spending 
it  in  luxury,  in  purchasing  votes,  in  securing  the  support  of  the 
soldiery — on  which  vast  sums  were  expended  both  in  Republican 
and  Imperial  times — in  giving  vast  displays  to  gratify  the 
people,  and  similar  wholly  unproductive  ways.  And  the  only 
means  of  adding  to  the  wealth  already  acquired  was — ^Usury. 

Rome,  consequently,  became  the  usurer  of  usurers.  Quite 
apart  from  the  borrowers  on  a  large  scale,  the  artisans  and  small 
cultivators,  who  were  all  along  working  side  by  side  with  slavery, 
were  always  liable  to  fall  into  distress.  Then  they  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  lenders,  who  disbursed  money  which  they  could 
not  profitably  use  in  any  other  way,  exacting  for  the  accommo- 
dation heavy  rates  of  interest  which  soon  turned  debtors  into 
slaves.  Money  was  the  one  thing  needful  to  rich  and  poor 
alike.  To  the  rich  who  wanted  it  for  the  purposes  enumerated 
above ;  to  the  poor  who  had  to  make  indispensable  payments 
or  fill  up  the  void  occasioned  by  some  unforeseen  misfortune. 
War  helped  usury  in  both  ways  above  and  below.  So  it  came 
about  that,  though  much  of  the  really  high-boni  aristocracy  had 
disappeared,  those  who  had  taken  their  places  as  patricians  were 
still  more  addicted  to  commercial  transactions,  large  financial 
affairs  of  a  profitable  character  and  downright  usury  than  their 
predecessors.  Now  the  most  powerful  men  in  Rome  rivalled 
the  rich  plebeians  in  their  greed  for  gain  and  in  their  lack  of 


138  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

scruples  as  to  how  they  became  possessed  of  it.  Poiiipey  the 
Great  was  a  usurer  on  a  large  scale,  and  demanded  and  obtained 
rates  of  interest  which  would  be  considered  satisfactory  by  the 
most  grasping  of  modern  Shylocks.  Even  when  lending  to  a 
large  municipality  his  charge  was  4  per  cent,  a  month  or  48  per 
cent,  a  year.  Caesar,  who  from  his  democratic  policy  in  regard 
to  the  lower  classes  of  citizens  has  been  regarded  as  a  man  not 
only  of  great  ability  but  of  enlightened  and  humane  views, 
Caesar  himself  was  closely  connected  by  marriage  and  otherwise 
with  great  money-lenders,  and  lost  no  chance  of  turning  an 
honest  penny  in  the  domain  of  finance.  So  with  the  majority 
of  the  others.  Crassus,  LucuUus,  Cato,  the  uncle  of  Maecenas, 
Brutus,  all  made  use  of  the  cash  which  had  come  to  them  in 
various  ways  for  the  purpose  of  extorting  high  rates  of  interest 
from  borrowers  in  and  out  of  Rome  itself.  In  this  department 
of  money-dealing  the  Romans  had  little  to  learn. 

Moreover,  if  commerce  and  usury  were  conducted  wholesale, 
and  the  gains  were  proportionately  great,  then  the  transactions 
were  quite  honourable.  The  scale  was  the  criterion  of  respect- 
ability. Cicero  is  careful  to  say  so.  Petty  transactions  were 
unworthy ;  conveyance  on  a  large  scale,  however,  was  another 
matter.  In  fact  the  Romans  of  high  degree  took  much  the  same 
view  of  commerce  and  usury  that  society  in  London  to-day  takes 
of  shopkeeping.  A  small  trader  is  a  man  of  low  class,  but  the 
head  of  a  great  store  or  of  a  series  of  shops  marches  up  the  ladder 
of  profiteering  through  various  grades  of  distinction  into  the 
House  of  Lords.  The  same  with  usury,  which  lost  its  ill-smelling 
odour  in  practical  life  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the 
loans.  Even  so  to-day  a  wealthy  pawnbroker  is  detestable ; 
his  son  or  grandson  is  a  Cabinet  Minister  and  a  peer. 

When  once  Rome  had  come  under  the  yoke  of  money  it  was 
quite  impossible  for  her  to  emancipate  herself.  There  were  no 
more  rich  and  civilised  territories  to  be  despoiled.  At  home 
the  greater  part  of  rural  production  was  conducted,  whether  on 
a  large  scale  by  slaves,  or  by  freemen  and  coloni  on  a  small, 
for  the  direct  supply  of  the  great  proprietors  and  their  retainers 
and  urban  slaves,  within  convenient  distance  of  the  towns  and 
cities,  or  for  the  maintenance  of  the  small  owners  and  their 
families  on  the  spot.  It  was  this  natural  production,  the  main 
features  of  cultivation  in  parts  of  Italy  remote  from  Rome  and 
throughout  the  provinces,  which  kept  Rome  from  collapsing 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  USURY        139 

much  sooner  than  she  did.  Urban  interests  dominated.  But 
rural  economy  upheld  the  State,  when  the  cultivators  were 
not  utterly  ruined  by  devastation  due  to  civil  wars  and  foreign 
invasions,  the  spread  of  great  slave-worked  farms  and  pasturage 
as  well  as  the  weight  of  taxation  and  military  service.  Even 
when  such  ruin  had  been  wrought  other  small  farmers  sprang 
up  again,  and  continued  to  hold  their  o^vn.  For  the  money 
system,  though  all-powerful  in  Rome  itself,  never  obtained 
complete  control  in  the  country  districts. 

This  brief  survey  of  Roman  usury  shows  how  completely  the 
money  power  had  become  dominant  all  over  the  Empire  wher- 
ever men  were  driven  to  borrow  from  any  cause  whatsoever. 
The  decline  and  fall  of  Imperial  supremacy  left  it  still  in  control, 
wherever  payments  in  kind  were  even  partially  replaced  by 
pecuniary  relations.  Where  money,  the  universal  equivalent, 
was  pressingly  needed  there  the  money-lender  and  usurer  came 
in  as  an  indispensable  functionary  in  the  society  of  the  day. 
Rich  and  poor  fell  equally  into  his  grasp  :  the  wealthy  noble 
who  required  advances  for  display  or  the  impoverished 
peasant  who  was  forced,  as  before,  to  pledge 'his  holding 
in  order  to  purchase  seed  in  a  bad  season  or  to  procure  the 
tools  necessary  for  his  occupation.  The  usurer  has  extended 
all  over  the  globe  from  the  bunnia  and  shroff  of  India  to  the 
small  pawnbroker  and  petty  Shylock  of  the  cities,  from  the 
bankers  of  the  West,  inheriting  their  trade  from  the  commercial 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  great  finance  houses 
advancing  on  railway  and  other  bonds. 

Throughout  the  long  period  of  overthrow  and  turmoil  follow- 
ing upon  the  great  barbarian  invasions  the  money-lender  and 
usurer  still  held  his  own,  increasing  his  charges  to  the  borrowers, 
and  demanding  all  the  tangible  security  he  could  for  his  ad- 
vances on  the  ground  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  times.  During 
the  Middle  Ages  the  same  usurers  were  ever  the  most  unpopular 
of  mankind.  Not  unfrequently  they  suffered  grievous  bodily 
harm  and  even  death  at  the  hands  of  their  suffering  debtors. 
But  neither  the  most  stringent  laws  nor  the  most  vehement 
religious  exhortations  could  restrain  the  influence  of  money 
accumulated  in  private  hands.  If  Jews  attained  to  pre- 
eminence in  this  particular  department  of  trade,  this  was  due 
not  to  their  special  original  aptitude  for  such  business,  but 
because,  shut  out  from  the  land  and  regarded  with  detestation 


140  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

in  other  walks  of  life,  they,  with  their  close  raeial  connection  in 
all  countries,  were  driven  to  money-lending  and  general  financial 
operations  if  they  wished  to  increase  their  wealth.  Yet  though 
private  vengeance  has  often  been  wrought  upon  Jews  and  their 
competitors  in  usury,  especially  in  agricultural  countries,  the 
ancient  and  world-wide  antagonism  between  debtors  and 
creditors  has  never,  in  modern  history,  resulted  in  such  social 
revolutions  as  previously  recorded.  In  spite  of  the  legislation 
against  usury  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  attempts  of  the  courts 
at  times  to  prevent  the  creditors  from  obtaining  their  pound  of 
flesh,  the  actual  position  of  the  debtor  was  exceedingly  bad  in 
all  civilised  countries.  So  far  from  the  law  preventing  usury,  it 
swelled  the  rates  demanded  for  accommodation  on  account  of 
the  presumed  risk  on  the  one  hand,  and  treated  the  debtors  as 
virtual  criminals  on  the  other.  Thus  from  first  to  last  no  law, 
no  ethic,  no  religion  could  prevail.  The  fathers  of  the  Church 
were  as  incapable  of  restricting  usury  by  their  denunciations  as 
the  pagan  philosophers  of  old  or  the  futile  moralists  of  to-day. 
Legislators  and  ecclesiastics  alike  found  money  in  the  form  of 
usury  uncontrollable  in  its  operations.  So  late  as  1854  usury 
laws  were  still  on  the  English  Statute  Book,  while  debtors  could 
nevertheless  be  imprisoned  by  the  usurers  for  the  non-payment 
of  debts  incurred.  So  difficult  is  it  to  relieve  mankind  from 
this  form  of  pecuniary  oppression. 

But  why  is  it  that  usury  and  the  trading  upon  the  necessities 
of  others  is  regarded  at  the  present  time  with  little  of  the  obloquy 
which  attached  to  it  throughout  antiquity,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  even  comparatively  recently  in  modern  times  ?  Because 
the  bulk  of  such  transactions  take  the  shape  of  a  participation 
in  the  profits  derived  from  the  exploitation  of  labour,  and 
consequently  only  lending  which  takes  the  obnoxious  shape  and 
savour  of  fraud  is  regarded  as  in  any  way  nefarious.  Usury,  in 
fact,  has  become  almost  a  negligible  factor  in  modern  financial 
economy,  when  contrasted  with  the  vast  returns  derived  from 
the  "  legitimate  gains  "  of  money  capital  embarked  in  industrial 
enterprise — ^gains  which  far  transcend  in  good  times  any  direct 
usury  ever  extracted  from  borrowers. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ECONOMIC  BACKWATERS :    PERU 

The  iinniense  antiquity  of  man  on  the  planet  and  the  enormous 
periods  traversed  in  his  development  from  the  lowest  grades  of 
human  society  to  the  first  stages  of  ordered  communism  have 
only  been  understood  within  the  last  generation.  Many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  are  now  accepted  as  the  lowest 
estimate  of  the  time  that  our  ancestors  occupied  in  attaining 
to  existing  civilisation,  which  itself  is  now  seen  to  be  only  the 
beginning,  not  the  end,  of  hvmian  progress  in  society.  Conse- 
quently even  the  oldest  forms  of  ancient  governments,  reaching 
back  as  in  Babylon,  in  China,  or  Egypt,  many  thousands  of 
years,  are  now  recognised  as  comparatively  quite  modem. 
The  period,  which  can  only  be  faintly  realised  from  the 
buildings,  tools,  weapons,  decorations,  mounds  and  refuse 
heaps  that  have  been  discovered,  is  far  more  important  and 
much  longer  than  the  ages  in  which  we  can  discover,  from  sculp- 
tures, inscriptions  and  hieroglyphics  on  monuments,  and  then 
from  definite  records,  what  were  the  institutions  as  well  as  the 
habits  and  customs,  tools,  machines,  metals  and  general  social 
arrangements  of  our  less  remote  forbears. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  is  that  since  palaeoUthic  man 
spread  all  over  the  globe,  probably  from  one  centre,  through- 
out the  world,  man  has  pursued  the  same  course  of  social  growth. 
It  is  not  at  all  surprising,  therefore,  that  we  should  find  the  same, 
or  almost  precisely  similar,  monuments  on  every  continent  and 
even  in  certain  islands.  These  islands,  though  now  divided 
from  any  mainland  by  thousands  of  miles  of  sea,  were  quite 
possibly  connected  with  it  at  the  time  when  these  monuments 
were  constructed  by  men  in  at  least  the  higher  stage  of  barbar- 
ism, who  seem  to  have  been  replaced  by  a  set  of  truculent  and 
bloodthirsty  savages.  If  the  evolution  of  the  theory  of  relation- 
ships is  world-wide,  then  manifestly  the  forms  of  marriage  out 
of  which  those  relationships  grew,  and  the  commmial  systems 
141 


142  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

accompanying  them,  were  likewise  world-wide.  Yet  these 
communal  societies  do  not  always  take  the  same  shape  when 
they  constitute  the  social  arrangements  of  the  same  race. 
Local  conditions  modify  the  methods  by  which  they  supply 
their  wants,  and  peoples  of  the  like  lineage  may  be  simultane- 
ously engaged  in  pastoral  life,  or  in  agriculture,  or  even  in 
hunting  and  fishing,  as  their  main  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood, 
according  to  the  climate  and  nature  of  the  country  where  the 
different  portions  of  the  same  tribe  which  had  reached  the  like 
level  of  social  status  were  settled.  That,  of  course,  is  only  to 
say  that  surroundings  influence  methods  of  production,  just  as 
methods  of  production  adapt  themselves  in  great  part  to  sur- 
roundings. Consequently  there  arise  variations  in  the  social 
relations  themselves,  due  not  to  changes  in  the  power  of  the 
groups  over  Nature  herself,  but  to  the  different  character  of 
the  natural  conditions — that  must  perforce  be  dealt  with. 

When,  also,  a  certain  stage  of  communistic  barbarism,  or  even 
civilisation,  has  been  attained,  the  same  forms  may  be  main- 
tained for  thousands  of  years,  without  any  social  upheaval  or 
serious  modification  of  social  structure.  This  although  changes 
and  improvements  may  have  been  made  in  the  methods  of 
production.  It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  in  the 
conditions  of  America,  prior  to  the  arrival  of  Columbus,  that 
nowhere  had  the  stage  of  civilisation,  based  upon  the  various 
categories  of  private  property,  been  reached.  Savage  tribes 
had  butchered  and  eaten  peaceful  barbarian  peoples  of  a  higher 
level  of  social  evolution,  and  in  turn  the  more  highly  organised 
communists  conquered  the  man-eating  communists  who  else- 
where had  been  the  victors.  But  the  original  societies  thus 
indulging  in  mutual  antagonisms,  whether  brutal  cannibals  or 
more  refined  tribes  under  theocratic  chiefdom,  were  all  in  the 
communal  period.  Moreover,  the  huge  buildings  scattered 
through  North  and  South  America  show  that  the  inhabitants 
of  these  various  districts  had  attained  to  what  is  now  called 
the  megalithic  age,  similar  relics  of  which  are  to  be  found  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  thus  showing  once  again  that  different 
branches  of  mankind  everywhere  passed,  unconsciously  and 
without  any  possibility,  in  the  case  of  America  at  least  of 
imitation,  through  identically  the  same  evolution.  Monuments 
cannot  be  mistaken  for  accidental  natural  phenomena. 


PERU  143 

Whatever  may  be  the  real  history  of  the  vast  ruins  of  Tia- 
huanoco  and  their  abandonment,  the  Peruvians,  ruled  by  the 
Incas,  furnish,  unquestionably,  the  largest  and  most  complete 
example  of  conmiunistic  arrangements,  under  the  domination 
of  hereditary  theocratic  chieftainship,  known  within  the  historic 
period.     Mexico  was  quite  as  remarkable  a  nation  as  Peru. 
But  there  the  ferocious  Aztecs,  with  their  mdespread  cannibal- 
ism and  frightful  religious  orgies  of  bloodshed,  though  still 
cherishing  many  of  the  early  and  gentile  communal  forms, 
showed  no  such  scheme  of  organised  labour  as  could  be  found 
in  Peru.      Therefore,  as  the  widest  application  of  theocratic 
or  State  communism,  Peru  is  worthy  of  closer  study  from  the 
sociahst  standpoint  than  has  yet  been  given  to  it.    We  are 
dependent  upon  Garcilasso  da  Vega,  himself  an  Inca  through 
his  mother,  the  monk  Cieza  and  Prescott's  invaluable  excerpts 
from  the  MS.  records,  which  he  read  in  the  Spanish  archives  in 
Madrid,  for  all  we  know  of  Peruvian  institutions,  beyond  what 
can  be  derived  from  tradition  and  the  monuments.     The  general 
impression  is  that  the  Incas  administered  a  mild  and  beneficent 
regime  which  had  endured,  at  the  outside,  for  four  hundred  years, 
from  the  founder  of  the  dynasty,  Manco  Capac  (who  taught 
the  people  all  the  trades  and  arts  and  tillage  they  practised), 
through  twelve  successive  Incas  down  to  the  Spanish  invasion. 
Obviously,  this  is  too  absurdly  short  a  time  to  account  for 
the  existence  of  such  an  elaborate  and  well-wrought  social 
system  as  that  which  had  its  centre  in  Cuzco  and  extended  over 
an  immense  area,  embracing  many  climates  and  the  most  diverse 
soils.     Manco  Capac  was,   of  course,   merely  the  traditional 
heaven-bom  benefactor,  the  child  of  the  Sun  God,  who,  in 
reality,  was  represented  by  generations  of  himian  evolution 
extending  over  thousands  of  years.     Peru  showed  a  high  grade 
of    communal   barbarism,    with    almost    scientific    knowledge 
of  agriculture,  which  must  have  grown  up  from  an  immense 
antiquity.     Moreover,  the  acquiescence  of  millions  of  Peruvians 
in  the  ordinances  decreed  for  them  and  the  confidence  the 
original  stock  displayed  in  the  sacred  and  beneficent  character 
of  the  administration  points  to  a  very  long  persistence  of  Inca 
rule — a  persistence  immensely  exceeding  the  short  space  of 
time  accorded  to  it  by  Garcilasso  da  Vega  and  his  authorities. 
However    this  may  be,  all  Spanish    accounts   agree  with 


144  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Garcilasso  and  other  almost  contemporary  writers  as  to  the 
wonderfully  successful  organisation  of  the  Inca  State.  All 
likewise  concur  in  the  view  that  there  was  no  direct  personal 
slavery,  or  man-ownership,  of  any  kind,  and  that  the  mass  of  the 
people  did  not  know  what  real  poverty  was.  Below  the  level 
of  the  Incas  of  the  blood  royal,  and  the  nobility  who  had  special 
advantages,  the  gener&l  body  of  workers  were  free  from  all 
anxiety  as  to  their  sustenance  and  general  well-being.  This 
fact  is  certified  by  Cieza  de  Leon,  who  is  regarded  by  all 
authorities  as  quite  the  most  reliable  Spanish  writer  on  Peru- 
vian institutions.  He  travelled  several  thousand  miles  through 
the  country,  examining  closely  into  various  departments  of  the 
production  and  distribution  of  food,  the  duties  of  the  inhabitants 
and  the  methods  of  administration.  He  is  frequently  quoted 
by  the  Inca,  Garcilasso  da  Vega,  as  thoroughly  trustworthy. 
Nor  has  this  ever  been  disputed.  Allowing  that  Garcilasso 
himself  is  apt  to  exaggerate  the  good  qualities  and  to  overrate 
the  character  of  the  rule  of  his  own  relations,  the  following 
statements  seem  irrefragably  estabUshed  : — 

1.  All  the  inhabitants  of  Peru,  male  and  female,  young  and 
old,  below  a  certain  grade,  were  called  upon  to  serve  in  the 
various  industries  and  on  general  public  works. 

2.  Their  produce,  whether  agricultural  or  manufactured,  was 
divided  into  three  parts,  one  for  the  Inca  and  the  Inca's  rela- 
tions, one  for  the  Sun  temples  and  the  priests,  and  one  for  them- 
selves. But  the  proportion  for  the  Incas  and  for  the  temples 
were  largely  stored,  and  could  be  and  were  drawn  upon  in 
times  of  scarcity. 

Here,  then,  by  universal  admission,  we  have  a  society  capable 
of  the  tillage  and  manuring  of  land  to  such  a  high  degree  of 
efficiency  that  its  members  were  all  well  supplied  with  food  of 
a  kind  adequate  to  fit  them,  not  only  for  the  most  arduous 
works  of  peace,  but  for  great  vigour  and  endurance  in  war. 

The  system  of  irrigation — regard  being  had  to  the  mechanical 
means  at  their  disposal  and  the  natural  difficulties  to  be  sur- 
mounted— ^is  looked  upon  with  admiration  by  the  ablest 
hydraulic  engineers  of  our  own  time.  Terraces  upon  terraces  of 
cultivated  land,  watered  by  their  ingenuity,  rose  one  above  the 
other  to  the  snow  level,  in  districts  where  modem  peoples  would 
scarcely  attempt  to  grow  any  artificial  crops.     Evidence  of 


m 


PERU  145 

Peruvian  proficiency  and  success  in  this  respect  remains  to  this 
day.  Of  their  strictly  scientific  system  of  manuring  from 
various  sources,  also,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever.  What  a  high 
level  of  agricultural  skill  must  they  not  have  reached  when  they 
went  off  in  their  little  miserable  raf t-hke  balsas — the  Peruvians, 
unUke  the  Polynesians,  had  no  canoes,  large  or  small — in  order 
to  fetch  as  much  of  guano  from  the  Chincha  Islands  and  else- 
where as  their  petty  vessels  could  carry  !  Their  admitted  pre- 
servation of  the  birds  which  gave  them  this  valuable  means  of 
soil  enrichment  displays  an  amount  of  forethought  and  calcula- 
tion which  too  often  are  lacking  in  civilised  communities. 

Their  methods  of  cultivation  seem,  in  fact,  to  have  been  well- 
nigh  perfect,  when  we  remember  their  inferior  implements ;  and, 
where  the  soil  and  climate  varied,  they  appear  to  have  modified 
their  methods  of  production  to  meet  the  changed  conditions — 
showing  an  indispensable,  but  none  the  less  remarkable  capacity 
of  deahng  with  natural  phenomena  in  an  empire  which  was 
thousands  of  miles  in  length.  They  possessed  but  one  source 
of  tame  animal  supply,  the  llamas,  vicunas  and  alpacas,  which 
belonged  nominally  to  the  Incas,  and  were  tended  by  shepherds 
from  the  general  community  as  part  of  the  social  service  of 
themselves  and  their  families.  But  the  wool  of  the  llamas  was 
nevertheless  as  much  at  the  disposal  of  the  whole  of  this  Peru- 
vian society  as  that  of  the  wild  flocks  feeding  on  the  mountains, 
killed  down  once  every  four  years,  or  as  the  fibres  obtained  by 
cultivation  in  the  fields  or  from  natural  growths.  The  distri- 
bution of  wool  from  the  herds  was  just  as  carefully  managed, 
since  the  cUp  was  regularly  shared  for  weaving  into  woollen 
cloth  for  the  use  of  the  people,  as  well  as  of  the  privileged 
minority.  Their  processes  of  weaving  were  themselves  admir- 
able. In  other  directions  the  Peruvians  showed  an  amount  of 
artistic  culture  which  has  not  often  been  displayed  by  private 
property  civilisation.  Not  only  were  the  villagers  well  housed 
in  proportion  to  their  needs — overcrowding  in  town  or  country 
being  apparently  unknown,  owing  to  the  ease  with  which  decent 
houses  were  erected,  surrounded  by  adequate  land  for  the  tillage 
of  their  inhabitants — but  stupendous  buildings  of  great  magni- 
ficence, decorated  profusely  with  gold  and  furnished  with  superb 
golden  vessels,  were  erected  for  the  churches  of  the  Sun  God  and 
the  palaces  of  the  Incas. 

K 


146  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

The  ruins  of  these  imposing  structures  remain  to  this  day  to 
confirm  the  statements  of  the  Spanish  conquerors.  How  such 
enormous  blocks  of  stone  were  conveyed  long  distances  from 
their  quarries,  were  then  rough-hewn,  finished,  set  in  place  and, 
where  necessary,  clamped  together  with  copper  bands,  remains 
still  a  cause  of  amazement.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that,  so 
far  as  the  haulage  of  these  huge  blocks  was  concerned,  they  were 
moved  over  such  vast  distances  by  an  enormous  number  of 
men,  with  the  help  of  inclined  planes  and  possibly  wooden  rollers. 
Speculation,  in  fact,  on  this  point  is  set  at  rest  by  the  well- 
authenticated  tradition  that,  when  one  of  these  enormous  stones 
was  being  hauled  and  pushed  up  to  Cuzco  the  tackle  broke,  the 
stone  descended  the  declivity  up  which  it  had  been  dragged,  and 
some  three  thousand  men  lost  their  lives  in  consequence.  But 
the  setting  and  polishing  of  these  masses  of  stone  were  as  remark- 
able as  their  conveyance.  So  close  did  they  fit  into  one  another 
that,  both  being  highly  polished  on  the  nearest  face,  a  reciprocal 
action  was  set  up  between  the  blocks  on  either  side  which  even 
to-day  renders  it  impossible  to  insert  the  blade  of  a  knife  between 
them.  Copper  clamps  were  evidently  only  used  when  such 
complete  contiguity  could  not  be  obtained. 

Three  points  are  worthy  of  note  with  respect  to  these  stones 
and  the  abnormally  spacious  buildings  of  which  they  formed 
part.  Though,  first,  tremendous  human  strength  admirably 
organised  must  have  been  necessary  to  bring  the  stones  to  the 
place  where  they  were  used,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the 
men  thus  employed  were  treated  as  slaves  and  driven  to  their 
work  under  the  lash,  as  in  the  case  of  some  vast  European, 
African  and  Asiatic  monuments.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  posi- 
tively stated,  and  the  Spaniards  themselves  seem  to  have  be- 
lieved it  to  be  true,  that  the  people  who  were  employed  on  these 
and  all  other  public  works,  architectural  and  agricultural,  per- 
formed their  duties  with  great  cheerfulness,  laughing  and  singing 
the  whole  time.  There  was  no  reason  why  they  should  do  other- 
wise. Work  itself  under  good  conditions  of  existence,  for  obvious 
social  advantage,  need  never  be  other  than  exhilarating.  It  is 
overwork  and  excessive  strain,  enforced  for  the  benefit  of  others, 
which  is  intolerable.  The  Peruvians  did  not  suffer  from  this 
under  their  theocratic  communism. 

Then,  secondly,  we  may  stand  amazed  here  and  in  other  parts 


PERU  147 

of  North  and  South  America  at  the  great  knowledge  of  archi- 
tecture and  building  which  the  creators  of  these  vast  structures 
must  have  possessed ;  and  the  innumerable  experiments  which 
they  doubtless  made,  extending  over  long  epochs  of  time,  before 
they  arrived  at  such  surprising  mastery  over  their  materials, 
shaping  them,  getting  them  into  place  and  the  like.  Here 
alone  we  arrive  at  a  conception  of  what  man  attained  to  under 
communistic  barbarism,  which  should  serve  to  convince  us  finally 
that  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  the  institution  of  communism, 
merely  as  communism,  to  prevent  mankind,  though  possessed 
only  of  very  inferior  tools,  from  providing  ample  food,  clothing 
and  housing  by  the  labour  of  the  whole  population  from  youth 
to  age.  This  even  when  a  large  portion  of  their  produce  is 
deducted  for  the  maintenance  of  non-productive  classes,  for 
warlike  purposes,  for  the  erection  of  great  buildings,  or  the 
support  and  arming  of  relatively  large  armies.  That  the  Peru- 
vians had  a  big  surplus  in  each  good  year  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  is,  indeed,  clear  enough,  since  such  large  numbers  of  men 
could  be  withdrawn  from  the  working  population  for  the  creation 
of  vast  public  works,  destined  for  defence  or  display,  whose  con- 
struction occupied  long  periods.  The  fact  that  such  structures 
were  raised,  as  it  appears,  at  the  same  time  that  important 
military  expeditions  were  undertaken  and  carried  out,  enforces 
this  contention. 

These  expeditions  were  elaborately  prepared  for  by  the  Incas, 
as  a  portion  of  a  deliberate  policy  of  extension  of  their  empire 
over  tribes  which  had  not  reached  the  same  status  as  the  Peru- 
vians themselves.  Barracks  were  erected,  ready  for  the  housing 
of  the  soldiers  along  the  roads  by  which  it  was  intended  to 
advance  to  the  attack  of  the  populations  to  be  subdued.  More- 
over— which  is  very  important  from  the  economic  standpoint — 
stores  of  grain  and  other  necessaries  were  accumulated  close  at 
hand,  to  provide  full  sustenance  for  the  soldiers  on  march  and  to 
prevent  them  from  being  a  burden  on  the  villages  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, either  by  demanding  suppUes  or  by  insisting  upon 
accoimnodation.  Thus  the  theocratic  communism  had  de- 
veloped into  an  Imperial  communism  in  the  course  of  centuries. 
The  people  who  were  subdued  were  neither  slaughtered  and 
eaten,  nor  enslaved.  They  were,  so  far  as  possible,  adopted  or 
absorbed  into  the  community  or  empire  of  their  conquerors. 


148  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

compelled  to  worship  the  Sun,  and  forced  to  abandon  cannibal- 
ism and  indulgence  in  unnatural  vice.  Historians  favourable 
to  the  Incas,  such  as  Garcilasso  da  Vega,  all  make  out  that  these 
attacks  upon  savage  tribes  were  entered  upon  from  purely  phil- 
anthropic motives,  and  that  the  extension  of  the  empire  was 
conducted  on  the  most  humane,  as  it  certainly  was  on  the  best 
military,  principles.  But  a  less  prejudiced  survey  inevitably 
suggests  that  the  Peruvian  soldiery  were  by  no  means  so  humane 
in  their  methods  as  these  writers  would  have  us  believe ;  that 
the  wholesale  burning  alive  of  men  said  to  be  addicted  to  un- 
seemly vices,  together  with  their  wives,  their  cliildren  and  their 
dwellings,  might  easily  have  arisen  from  the  ordinary  desire  for 
military  vengeance  on  those  who  had  made  a  stout  resistance, 
rather  than  from  high  moral  indignation ;  and  that  the  high- 
born and  divine  royal  family,  surrounded  by  a  selfish  nobility, 
were  naturally  inclined  to  bring  into  the  fold  vigorous  savages 
who  would  furnish  their  proportion  of  the  tribute  to  the 
privileged  few.  That,  however,  the  Peruvian  chieftains  did 
incidentally  put  an  end  to  cannibalism  and  abolish  human  sacri- 
fice among  the  peoples  they  subdued,  since  they  had  long  given 
up  such  sacrifices  themselves,  seems  beyond  question.  Whether 
cannibalism  could  have  been  arbitrarily  suppressed,  unless 
simultaneously  an  equivalent  or  better  diet  had  been  offered, 
is  extremely  doubtful. 

In  at  least  one  instance  an  attempt  thus  to  soften  the  manners 
and  customs  of  tribes  attacked  on  the  borders  of  the  empire 
completely  failed.  The  cannibals,  vicious  men  and  fetish- 
worshippers,  having  successfully  resisted  the  arms  of  the  Inca, 
were  set  down  as  shameless  miscreants,  unworthy  to  share  in  the 
blessings  of  Peruvian  domination.  When  also  the  powerful 
tribe  of  Chancas,  which  had  been  recently  subjugated,  rose 
against  those  whom,  in  spite  of  their  virtues  and  admirable 
organisation,  they  nevertheless  regarded  as  their  oppressors,  and 
succeeded  in  driving  the  reigning  Inca  from  his  capital,  the  son 
of  the  fugitive  potentate,  who  reorganised  and  led  to  victory  the 
defeated  Peruvian  armies,  displayed,  in  the  course  of  his  success- 
ful reconquest,  qualities  of  heart  and  head  which  can  scarcely 
be  reconciled  with  scrupulous  philanthropy.  But  when  the 
Chancas  were  thoroughly  beaten  and  subdued  the  dictates  of 
true  statesmanship  prevailed;  and  the  new  Inca,  having  deposed 


PERU  149 

his  recreant  father,  permitted  his  defeated  enemies,  so  it  is 
alleged,  to  return  to  their  enforced  allegiance  on  the  easy  terms 
of  sharing  in  the  life  of  the  Peruvian  people.  Systematic  war- 
fare, accompanied  by  far-seeing  generosity  to  the  people  who 
surrendered,  was  the  general  poUcy  of  the  Incas.  Where  they 
showed  intolerance  and  cruelty  was  in  dealing  with  treason  in 
their  own  royal  family  or  with  risings  among  their  own  Peruvian 
cliieftains.    There  they  were  truculent  enough. 

But  these  matters,  or  even  the  unspeakable  ruthlessness  of  the 
Inca  Atahualpa  towards  members  of  his  own  family,  which 
did  so  much  to  help  the  Spaniards  in  their  ruffianly  sack  of 
Peru,  do  not  affect  the  social  and  economic  conditions  of  Peru- 
vian communism.  They  only  show  that,  as  against  tribes  at  a 
lower  stage  of  development,  the  Inca  Empire  of  the  Sun,  under 
theocratic  communism,  was  as  thoroughly  organised  for  war  as 
it  was  for  peace.  Peace  among  the  sun-worshipping  communists 
inside ;  war  against  the  fetish-worshippers  outside.  The  former 
for  economic  and  social  advantage  at  home,  the  latter  to  increase 
Inca  power  and  prosperity  by  absorption  of  other  populations 
abroad. 

This  highly  organised  communistic  realm  had  reached  a  point 
in  its  development  which  might  easily  have  gone  much  farther. 
Mining  for  gold  and  copper  was  carried  on  assiduously  and  with 
great  success,  the  workers  in  the  mines,  again,  being  supported 
by  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  while  engaged  in  extracting  metals  from 
the  veins.  The  time  taken  by  the  miners  to  obtain  the  metals 
they  required  scarcely  reckoned  in  the  matter.  The  value  of 
the  copper,  like  the  value  of  the  gold,  was  "  a  value  in  use,"  not 
"  a  value  in  exchange."  To  us  the  advantage  of  gold  is  that,  if 
individuals,  or  a  set  of  combined  individuals,  own  enough  of  it 
they  can  virtually  buy  anything  physical,  moral  or  intellectual 
they  desire.  Gold  which  the  Peruvians  drew  from  their  mines 
had  no  more  significance  in  this  way  than  copper ;  though,  of 
course,  they  knew  very  well  that  the  one  metal  cost  much  more 
labour  to  obtain  and  refine  than  the  other.  Their  commerce 
had  not  arrived  at  the  point  where  the  precious  metals  domin- 
ated the  market,  or  where  exchange  in  any  shape  formed  an  im- 
portant element  in  their  everyday  life.  Yet  that  men  should  be 
able  to  mine  for  metals  to  be  used  for  industrial  purposes  or 
decoration,  while  the  gold  was  not  at  any  time  exchanged  in 


150  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

order  to  acquire  from  without  the  necessaries  of  Hfe,  shows  once 
more  that  the  amount  of  food  grown  in  the  country,  inckiding 
the  proportions  allotted  to  the  Incas,  the  priests,  and  the  nobles, 
must  have  been  ample  for  all  requirements.  That  the  gold 
should  have  been  extracted  and  refined,  and  the  copper  smelted, 
proves  likewise  that  the  highest  level  of  barbarism,  as  distin- 
guished from  savagery,  had  been  reached. 

But  still  more  remarkable,  from  some  points  of  view,  were  the 
Peruvian  bridges.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  iron  sus- 
pension bridges  which  were  considered  such  ingenious  devices 
for  nineteenth-century  roads  —  Telford's  suspension  bridge 
across  the  Menai  Straits,  for  example — ^were  virtually  anticipated, 
in  all  their  most  important  features,  by  the  suspension  bridges  of 
osiers  thrown  by  the  Peruvians  over  some  of  the  streams.  It 
is  true  that,  though  the  structure  was  provided  with  battens 
and  stretched  to  the  utmost  limit,  a  descent  to  the  centre  and  a 
rise  to  the  other  side  could  not  be  avoided.  But  so  strong  were 
these  osier  bridges  that  armies  marched  across  them  to  their 
destination,  and  they  lasted  as  long  as  the  osiers,  of  which  the 
chains  were  composed,  remained  sound. 

Now  in  all  this,  as  said,  there  was  no  direct  personal  slavery 
and,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  records,  no  directly  enforced  toil. 
But  the  organisation  for  securing  continuous  production  from  the 
managers  of  ten  families,  in  successive  multiples  of  ten  upwards 
through  the  whole  social  life,  was  as  complete  as  can  be  imagined. 
Every  detail  of  family  life,  monogamy  being  the  rule,  except  for 
the  Incas,  was  closely  watched  over  and  regulated.  It  was  im- 
possible for  anybody  from  infancy  onwards  to  escape  from  this 
all-pervading  social  system.  Committees  of  inspection  and 
methodical  suppression  from  above  supplemented  the  local 
management.  The  increase  or  decrease  of  numbers  in  a  family 
was  accompanied  by  proportional  changes  in  the  amount  of  land 
allotted  for  tillage,  as  well  as  in  the  size  of  the  dwelling  occupied. 
Although,  therefore,  we  read  in  the  laws  that  remain  to  us 
nothing  about  flogging,  or  fines,  or  torture  of  any  kind  for 
workers  or  managers  or  miners  or  shepherds  or  agriculturists, 
we  do  learn  that  the  punishment  of  death  was  decreed  not  only 
for  grave  offences,  but  for  the  slightest  breach  of  the  numerous 
and  minute  regulations  which  pervaded  the  entire  community. 
The  bare  fact  of  "  idleness  "  incurred  the  death  penalty  for  the 


PERU  151 

offender.  As  idleness  may  be  made  to  cover  a  very  wide  field  of 
petty  dereliction  of  duty,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  all  the  toiling 
portion  of  the  people  might  be  made  the  ^^ctims  of  the  most 
revolting  tyranny.  Probably  these  harsh  enactments  were 
rarely  put  into  practice,  and  that  indeed  is  generally  assumed. 
But  the  frequent  reference  to  the  crime  of  sloth  is  practically  a 
proof  that,  in  the  early  days  of  the  development  of  this  remark- 
able society  from  a  far  rougher  communist  savagery,  when  food 
was  less  easily  gro^\Ti,  the  theocratic  chieftains  and  their  priests 
imposed  draconian  penalties  on  the  rank  and  file  of  the  nominally 
free  tribesmen  who  hankered  after  a  return  to  a  less  orderly  and 
strenuous  existence,  even  at  the  expense  of  greater  uncertainty 
of  a  plentiful  supply  of  food.  That  the  later  Incas  also  did  not 
readily  tolerate  loafers  and  loungers  in  their  realm  may  be  taken 
as  certain. 

As  a  result  of  all  this  remarkable  co-ordination,  co-operation 
and  regulation  for  the  provision  of  adequate  sustenance,  clothing 
and  housing  for  all,  it  was  impossible  for  anyone  in  the  various 
climates  of  Peru  to  suffer  from  scarcity.  If  crops  failed  and  the 
ordinary  supplies  fell  short,  the  wants  of  the  people  were  fully 
supplied  from  the  royal  and  priestly  granaries  maintained  as  re- 
serves for  that  purpose.  There  was  no  anxiety  at  any  period  of 
life.  Mother  and  baby,  infants  of  tender  age,  men  and  women, 
the  old,  the  blind,  the  maimed  were  all  taken  care  of  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  gave  in  return  such  reasonable  social  service  as 
they  could.  That  this  service  was  not  excessive  is  shown  by  the 
calculation,  which  is  generally  taken  as  perfectly  sound,  that  two 
months  of  labour  by  the  working  members  of  the  country  sufficed 
to  discharge  all  their  dues  to  the  sacred  family  of  the  Inca, 
numerous  though  it  was,  as  well  as  to  provide  for  the  service  of 
the  temples.  Thus  it  is  fairly  well  established,  from  many  points 
of  view,  that  the  Peruvians,  by  reason  of  their  strict  communal 
arrangements,  and  in  spite  of  the  theocratic  despotism  under 
which  they  lived,  were  relieved,  by  their  ovm  exertions,  from  all 
the  racking  cares  which  render  life  a  long  penal  servitude  for  the 
majority  of  the  wage-earners  of  civilisation.  Work  among  the 
communal  Peruvians  was  a  joyous  service,  as  narratives  of  the 
conquerors  relate ;  it  has  long  ceased  to  be  such  in  the  great 
industrial  centres  of  private  property.  That  Peruvian  work  was 
not  toilsome  is  admitted  by  the  most  careful  students  of  Peruvian 


152  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

economic  and  social  records.  The  carking  anxiety  which  per- 
vades so  many  households,  year  in  and  year  out,  under  civilisa- 
tion was  unknown.  If  life  was  not  to  the  few  a  propitious 
gamble  in  which  luck,  or  cunning,  or  unscrupulous  financial 
capacity  secured  for  the  possessors  of  these  advantages  economic 
domination  over  their  fellows,  it  was  not  for  the  many  one  per- 
petual strife  against  adverse  conditions  which  they  could  not 
hope  to  overcome. 

What,  then,  were  the  drawbacks  to  the  Peruvian  communism 
which  counterbalanced  the  social  security  and  confidence  in  the 
future  that  were  common  to  all  ?  In  order  to  obtain  the  certi- 
tude of  comfortable  well-being  the  great  mass  of  the  population 
was  compelled  to  devote  itself  to  work  upon  lines  imposed  from 
above.  There  was  practically  no  possibility  of  rising  into  a 
higher  social  status  for  those  who  were  bom  into  the  humble 
ranks.  The  workers  had  no  direct  control  over  the  arrange- 
ments made  for  their  own  welfare.  Soldiers,  drawn  from  the 
workers,  were  compelled  to  risk  life  and  limb  in  wars  which 
were  no  concern  whatever  of  theirs.  Lastly,  they  constituted 
part  of  a  society  in  which  no  initiative  was  possible  for  them 
except  with  the  consent  of  those  above. 

All  the  disadvantages  enumerated  exist  in  a  much  more  acute 
shape  in  the  social  systems  of  our  day.  But  the  absence  of 
initiative  for  the  entire  community  is  the  point  upon  which 
critics  chiefly  insist.  This  also  is  true  of  every  civilised  state 
from  chattel  slavery  to  wage  slavery,  especially  in  the  latest 
stage  of  growth. 

There  is,  however,  nothing  to  show  that  the  Inca  communism 
of  Peru  was  a  stereotyped,  unprogressive  society.  Nor  is  there 
any  reason  why  it  should  have  been  so.  Man,  relieved  from  the 
harassing  need  of  the  daily  provision  of  a  doubtful  supply  of 
sustenance,  has  always  been  an  inventive  animal.  How  other- 
wise could  human  beings  have  mounted  upwards  to  the  tool- 
using  and  nature-controlling  position  in  which  even  the  lower 
communism  was  practised  ?  That  the  bringing  to  perfection  of 
each  rough  idea  of  improvement  took  a  long  time,  possibly  many 
successive  generations,  only  affects  the  rate  of  progress.  And 
we  often  forget  that  some  of  the  most  ingenious  discoveries, 
inventions,  machines  and  contrivances  of  fully  developed 
capitalist  civilisation  took  a  long  time  before  they  were  adapted 


PERU  153 

to  ordinary  social  use.  Nay,  in  at  least  one  instance,  the  hapless 
inventor  was  immolated  by  the  conservative  workers  of  his  own 
epoch,  who,  naturally  enough,  as  we  can  now  admit,  failed  to 
discern  how  the  mechanical  cheapening  of  the  output  of  their 
commodities  could  possibly  benefit  them  or  their  progeny. 

But  there  is  more  direct  evidence  than  this  abstract  argument 
to  prove  that  Peruvian  communism  was  not  stationary.  Here 
tradition  and  actual  experience  come  in  to  confirm  the  ideas  of 
probable  hypothesis.  The  great  stone  buildings  to  which  refer- 
ence has  been  made,  both  anterior  to  and  during  Inca  supremacy, 
had  obviously  not  existed  from  all  time.  They  were  thought  of, 
experimented  upon  and  carried  out  during  the  communist  epoch. 
Here  was  a  most  remarkable  instance  of  unconscious  invention 
of  world-Avide  application ;  and  Peru  was  passing  through  the 
same  experience  that  man  in  society  traversed  almost  every- 
where else.  But  the  great  osier  suspension  bridges  seem  to  me 
to  settle  the  question  against  those  who  maintain  that  this 
communism  had  no  initiative.  There  was  no  necessity  for  their 
construction  after  the  elaborate  fashion  described  by  the  his- 
torians of  Peru,  with  the  two  ends  of  the  osier  cables  deeply 
embedded  and  anchored  on  either  side  of  the  ravine  or  river  to 
be  bridged,  so  long  as  the  Peruvian  communists  remained  within 
their  original  limits.  So  soon,  however,  as  they  began  to  expand 
their  Inca  empire  beyond  these  borders,  and  encoimtered  these 
obstacles  to  rapid  progress,  they  gave  up  the  laborious  task  of 
descending  and  climbing  out  of  the  canons,  or  crossing  the  rivers 
in  their  precarious  balsas,  or  hitching  these  rafts  on  to  a  thick 
rope  to  be  swept  from  one  side  to  the  other  by  the  action  of  the 
current — itself  an  ingenious  device  for  barbarism — and  adopted 
the  suspension  bridges  paved  with  battens,  which  became  part 
and  parcel  of  the  great  roads.  We  may  contend,  therefore,  from 
what  we  can  learn  of  all  the  circimistances,  that  the  assumption 
that  permanent  arrest  of  all  further  development  was  an 
inevitable  consequence  of  this  elaborate  communism  is  an 
assumption,  and  nothing  more. 

Without,  therefore,  in  any  way  exaggerating  the  benefits 
derived  by  the  people  from  the  communism  of  the  Incas,  or 
minimising  the  harmful  effects  of  irresponsible  theocracy,  and 
economic  and  social  relations  scrupulously  regulated  from  above, 
it  cannot  be  disputed  that  in  this  realm  of  the  Incas  of  Peru  we 


154  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

had  a  society  where  milhons  of  human  beings  were  in  such  a 
position  that — 

1.  They  were  assured  from  birth  to  death  against  lack  of  food, 
want  of  necessary  and  suitable  clothing,  and  were  always  pro- 
vided with  healthy  and  adequate  house-room. 

2.  They  obtained  these  essentials  of  existence  by  moderate 
labour  on  the  land,  which  was  intensively  cultivated  and  cap- 
ably manured,  as  well  as  by  the  application  of  skilled  labour  in 
manufacture  and  building. 

3.  They  carried  on  these  necessary  labours  without  resorting 
to  any  form  of  individual  personal  slavery. 

4.  They  were  not  driven  to  their  tasks  or  tortured  in  order 
to  exact  from  them  excessive  toil,  though  idleness  and  breaches 
of  the  laws  could  be  punished  with  death. 

5.  They  lived  in  harmony  with  one  another  and  astonished 
the  ruthless  and  butchering  Spaniards  who  conquered  them  by 
their  mild  manners. 

6.  They  possessed  small  means  of  production  in  comparison 
with  the  huge  powers  of  modern  civilisation ;  but  they  could 
nevertheless,  by  the  general  social  work  of  all,  construct 
vast  edifices,  bridge  considerable  streams,  establish  a  highly 
scientific  system  of  irrigation,  mine,  refine  and  smelt  metals 
for  their  use,  and  to  develop  a  system  of  agriculture  which 
in  some  respects  anticipated  the  most  scientific  cultivation  of 
modern  times. 

7.  They  were  so  well  organised  for  war  that  they  conquered 
and  absorbed  numerous  neighbouring  tribes,  and  persuaded 
them  to  give  up  their  savage  customs,  and  live  peacefully 
under  Inca  rule. 

8.  They  maintained  this  social  organisation  of  communal 
production  and  distribution,  on  an  ascending  scale  of  efficiency, 
according  to  all  probability  for  thousands,  not  hundreds,  of 
years  before  the  invasion  of  the  Spaniards. 

9.  They  displayed  ingenuity  and  initiative  in  solving  agricul- 
tural, manufacturing  and  engineering  problems  quite  on  a  par 
with  modem  achievement,  when  account  is  taken  of  the  inferior 
tools  and  appliances  which  alone  were  at  their  disposal. 

10.  They  kept  up  a  powerful  and  highly  disciplined  army 
without  inflicting  any  excessive  charge  upon  the  general  popula- 
tion. 


PERU  155 

11.  They  constructed  excellent  roads  throughout  their 
dominions  and  provided  post-houses  and  barracks  for  troops 
along  their  great  main  routes. 

12.  They  exhibited  artistic  and  decorative  faculties  of  a  very 
high  order,  and  were  far  superior  to  their  ruffianly  Spanish 
conquerors  in  the  politeness  and  decencies  of  ordinary  life. 

What  the  mass  of  Peruvians  lacked,  as  parts  of  a  huge  machine 
extending  for  three  thousand  miles  along  the  Pacific  coast  of 
South  America,  was  that  individual  liberty  to  which  we  rightly 
attach  so  much  importance.  But  this  is  nowhere  attained  under 
capitalism,  and  can  never  be  achieved  by  mankind  until  they 
collectively  and  communally  control  those  enormous  powers  of 
producing  and  distributing  wealth  unconsciously  inherited  from 
their  predecessors  and  now  used  by  the  minority  to  dominate 
them.  What  the  communist  empire  of  Peru,  however,  shows 
more  clearly  than  the  small  tribal  organisation  at  any  stage  of 
its  development  is,  that  the  provision  of  sufficient,  not  to  say 
abundant,  food,  clothing,  housing  and  leisure  was  an  easy 
matter  for  a  great  collection  of  human  beings  whose  powers  to 
create  and  distribute  wealth  were  infinitely  inferior  to  our  own. 


CHAPTER  XV 

ECONOMIC  BACKWATERS:   CHINA 

In  Peru  a  society,  dependent  upon  theocratic  domination  above, 
and  communal  production  and  distribution  below,  provided 
general  well-being  for  the  mass  of  a  large  population  living  under 
widely  different  conditions  of  climate  and  soil.  This  system,  as 
already  suggested,  lasted,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  vast  periods 
traversed  in  other  parts  of  the  world  in  the  transition  from  one 
stage  of  society  to  another,  an  immensely  longer  time  than  has 
been  generally  assumed.  Long  duration  of  social  arrangements 
once  established  seems  the  invariable  rule  under  any  form  of 
communism. 

In  China,  under  a  merely  nominal  theocracy  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  Incas  of  Peru,  we  have,  on  the  contrary,  an 
example  of  the  amazing  longevity  of  a  system  of  free  and  in- 
dependent farmers  with  their  small  private  properties  in  land. 
Yet  the  land  of  China  was  in  all  probability  first  devoted,  by  the 
same  race  which  now  occupies  its  spacious  territory,  to  tillage 
under  complete  or  modified  communism.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  that  is  to  say,  that  Chinese  society  went  through  the 
same  or  very  similar  stages  of  social  development  which  were 
traversed  by  mankind  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  For, 
notwithstanding  the  intensely  individual  character  of  private 
property  in  land  and  small  handicraft  which  prevails  in  the  China 
of  our  day,  there  exist  still  survivals  of  the  "  clans,"  with  the 
remains  of  usages  obviously  derived  from  a  series  of  village 
communities,  such  as  have  existed  for  centuries  in  India  and  in 
every  other  civilised  country. 

As  these  tribal  relations  and  communal  forms  still  subsist  as 
mere  vestiges  of  former  social  states,  so  the  next  stage  of  human 
development,  slavery,  though  having  long  since  ceased  to  be  the 
dominant  productive  force  of  Chinese  society,  still  lingers  on  in 
a  decadent  form,  bearing  witness  in  its  slow  disappearance  to 
what  had  formerly  been  an  almost  universal  institution.     But 

156 


CHINA  157 

however  these  jjrevioiis  social  arrangements  may  have  de- 
veloped in  the  remote  past,  until  the  age  of  private  property  was 
reached,  it  is  certain  that  the  cultivation  of  land  in  the  shape  of 
private  ownership,  to  some  extent  modified  by  ancient  com- 
munal usages,  and  throughout  accompanied  by  elaborate  an- 
cestor worship,  has  endured  in  China  with  Uttle  variation  for 
very  many  hundreds  of  years.  It  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of 
Chinese  history,  as  hitherto  expounded  to  students  in  the  West 
by  Europeans  who  have  carefully  observed  and  written  about 
China  and  her  people,  that  most  of  these  authorities  have  en- 
deavoured to  fit  their  calculations  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the 
country  and  the  development  of  its  civilisation  within  the  limits 
of  the  Mosaic  chronology.  This,  of  course,  is  quite  fatal  to  the 
formation  of  any  adequate  conception  of  what  really  occurred, 
by  a  hopeless  restriction  of  the  time  necessary  to  account  for  the 
social  evolution  that  has  manifestly  taken  place.  It  is  greatly 
to  be  regretted,  as  the  able  French  writer,  M.  Letoumeau,  says, 
that  some  portion  of  the  laborious  study  devoted  to  the  origins 
of  Greek  and  Roman  civilisation  has  not  been  given  to  the  early 
growth  of  China  and  the  development  of  her  successive  institu- 
tions. Still  more  regrettable  was  the  vanity  of  the  Mongol 
emperor,  at  the  fomidation  of  his  dynasty,  which  entailed  the 
destruction  of  many  early  records  and  annals  that  might  have 
provided  clues  to  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  the  various 
stages  of  Chinese  history.  But,  even  without  such  direct  in- 
formation of  an  earlier  day,  it  is  certain  that  the  discoveries  and 
inventions  of  the  Chinese  of  old  time,  wonderful  as  they  were, 
could  not  by  any  possibihty  have  been  rushed  through  and 
brought  into  common  usage  within  the  length  of  time  ordinarily 
apportioned  to  their  development. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  consider  the  annals  of  Confucius,  so  far  as 
they  relate  to  the  two  thousand  years  before  his  lifetime,  as 
purely  mythical ;  though,  had  they  been  so,  it  is  unhkely  that 
the  briUiant  and  cynical  commentator  who  followed  him  would 
have  failed  to  hint  that  they  had  no  foundation.  But  even 
assuming  them  to  be  myths  in  the  strict  historical  sense,  modem 
research  has  shown  us  clearly  in  other  directions  that  myths  and 
traditions  of  prehistoric  periods  have  a  definite  material  founda- 
tion, wliich  can  be  dug  down  to  and  realised  by  comparison  with 
similar  social  growths  elsewhere.     Thus  it  now  appears  that  the 


158  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

probable  date  of  the  actual  settlement  of  China  by  the  same 
race  which  now  inhabits  that  vast  scope  of  territory  cannot  be 
traced.  No  traditions  of  immigration  are  to  be  found  beyond 
the  conception  of  "  the  Hundred  Families  "  who  occupied  the 
country  at  a  period  so  infinitely  remote  that  many  thousands  of 
years  scarcely  cover  the  probable  date  of  their  first  appearance. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  the  civilisation  of  China  transcends  even 
that  of  Egypt  in  antiquity,  and  that  China  was  a  federation 
of  tribes  when  Sargon  I.  founded  Babylon.  It  is  impossible  to 
reconcile  the  evolution  of  such  an  enormously  populous  empire 
or  state  as  China,  possessing  for  hundreds  of  years  the  same 
written  and  printed  language,  with  most  elaborate  characters, 
which  practically  all  the  inhabitants  read  and  understand ; 
having  an  extensive  pottery  and  porcelain  establishment  under 
the  management  of  a  high  official  some  four  thousand  years  ago  ; 
anticipating  Europe  in  the  art  of  printing,  in  the  discovery  and 
application  of  the  mariner's  compass,  as  well  as  in  the  manu- 
facture and  use  of  gunpowder,  and  possessing  long-estabhshed 
native  commerce  and  banks,  a  network  of  irrigation  works  and 
navigable  canals,  with  any  chronological  calculations  hitherto 
propounded.  Yet  we  are  still  too  apt  to  treat  the  countless 
generations  which  led  up  to  the  consohdation  of  ancient  China 
into  an  established  and  civilised  community,  not  very  markedly 
different  from  that  we  see  now,  as  if  all  that  occurred  during  this 
great  sweep  of  time  were  purely  mythical.  When  the  Chow 
dynasty  was  established,  within  the  historical  epoch,  and  China 
was  undoubtedly  a  civilised  country,  Egypt  and  Assyria  were 
powerful  empires.  Athens,  Thebes,  Sparta,  Tyre  and  Carthage 
were  growing  little  communities.  Rome  was  not  founded. 
Solomon  had  not  built  his  temple.  We  may  almost  sum  up 
this  marvellous  continuity  of  civilised  longevity  with  "  China 
was,  China  is,  China  will  be  !  " 

Assuming,  as  now  seems  certain,  that  man  has  passed  through 
the  same  or  exceedingly  similar  stages  of  social  evolution,  re- 
presenting in  turn  peaceable  or  forcible  revolutions,  it  is  clear 
that  the  epochs  known  to  the  Chinese  under  the  names  of  pre- 
historic emperors  or  tribal  leaders  covered  vast  periods  of  time  : 
how  vast  we  cannot  at  present  determine.  The  statement  that 
one  of  these  now  legendary  benefactors  of  his  race  instituted 
astronomical  calculations,  and  worked  out  a  whole  system  of 


CHINA  159 

divisions  of  time,  merely  tells  us  that  the  Chinese,  early  in  their 
comparativ^ely  settled  condition,  had  arrived,  by  protracted  ob- 
servation of  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  at  the  same  conclusions 
as  were  being  slowly  reached  elsewhere.  Again,  when  we  are 
told  that  another  personage  of  superhuman  sagacity  transformed 
the  records  of  the  events  of  his  reign  from  perishable  knot- 
memorials  in  lengths  of  cord,  after  the  manner  of  the  Peruvians, 
into  the  generally  intelhgible  hieroglyphical  characters  which 
constitute  the  basis  of  Chinese  written  language  to-day,  all 
within  his  own  lifetime,  we  know  that  we  have  here  a  shorthand 
smnmary  of  the  gradual  and  long  drawn-out  experiments  which 
eventually  resulted  in  Chinese  printing  as  we  see  it  to-day. 
Such  a  crucial  transition  as  this  marks,  obviously,  a  special  stage 
in  the  long  process  of  evolution,  through  which  the  tribes  or 
clans  distributed  over  the  great  territory  of  our  own  time  were 
so  far  confederated  and  "  civilised "  that  they  regarded 
themselves  as  one  people,  and  accepted  a  common  written 
and  previously  a  common  spoken  language. 

Prior  to  this  another  personage,  also  figured  forth  as  an 
emperor,  performed  the  remarkable  feat  of  inducing  his  subjects 
to  give  up  entirely  their  nomadic  existence  as  hunters  and  fishers, 
with  merely  incidental  tillage,  and  enter  upon  stabilised  agri- 
culture with  a  common  centre ;  having  at  the  same  time  placed 
at  their  disposal  tame  animals  of  different  useful  kinds,  as  well 
as  the  various  appliances  of  the  husbandry  of  seed-planting  and 
foresight.  This  astounding  record  of  progress  was  achieved 
within  the  emperor's  own  exaggerated  Imperial  existence  of 
some  one  hundred  and  fifteen  years.  The  story  itself  is,  of 
course,  as  mythical  and  legendary  as  the  tales  of  Prometheus, 
Numa  or  Manco  Capac.  Nevertheless,  we  have  here  an  unmis- 
takable description,  in  brief,  of  the  great  inevitable  transition  of 
a  people  from  wandering  hordes,  dependent  upon  chance  suppHes 
of  food  obtained  mth  great  effort,  to  the  possession  of  flocks  and 
herds  of  tame  animals  and  thence  to  partial,  followed  by  regular 
and  persistent,  agricultural  cultivation — the  growth,  in  fact, 
of  the  ancestors  of  the  present  Chinese  people  from  savagery 
to  barbarism,  from  barbarism  to  the  higher  barbarism  of  con- 
federate gentile  tribes,  and  thence  onwards  to  the  lower  forms 
of  civilisation. 

So,  likewise,  with  the  changes  effected  by  yet  a  fourth  poten- 


160  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

tate,  more  remote  and  nebulous  still,  who  guided  the  denizens  of 
the  neolithic  age  of  unrecorded  and  unnumbered  centuries  from 
the  use  of  stone  implements  to  the  employment  of  those  of 
bronze,  and  thence  to  those  of  iron,  when  that  metal  gained  final 
supremacy  over  both  bronze  and  stone  for  tools  and  weapons. 
Here  we  have  again  a  rough  conspectus  of  the  traditional,  un- 
verified and  so  far  unverifiable  memorials  of  industrial,  economic 
and  social  changes ;  accompanied  by  the  alteration  of  the  law  of 
descent  from  the  matriarchal  to  the  patriarchal  form,  a  change 
traditionally  effected  by  the  semi-divine  powers  of  four  ex- 
ceptional rulers,  who  really  represent  immensely  long  periods 
in  the  evolution  of  this  remarkable  people. 

There  is  another  point,  not  of  a  directly  economic  character, 
which  gives  the  impression  of  almost  incalculable  antiquity  in 
Chinese  civilisation.  In  nearly  all  races  which  have  occupied 
the  same  scope  of  land  for  a  long  period,  without  displacement  by 
conquest  and  immigration  of  races  from  without,  some  tradi- 
tion or  ceremonial  observance  having  relation  to  cannibalism 
may  be  traced.  Nothing  of  the  kind  is  to  be  found  among  the 
Chinese  themselves ;  though  the  leaders  of  the  Turcoman  hordes, 
with  their  festal  cups  made  out  of  the  skulls  of  their  enemies, 
elaborately  decorated,  provide  evidence  that  the  invaders  of 
China  had  probably  been  addicted  to  the  consumption  of 
human  flesh.  This  absence  of  any  trace  of  ancient  cannibalism 
in  China  is  the  more  remarkable  since,  as  already  observed, 
relics  of  gentile  organisation  are  still  to  be  found  in  Chinese 
towns  and  villages.  And  where  gentile  relationship  and  matri- 
archal descent  have  prevailed  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  there 
vestiges  of  ancient  cannibalism  are  almost  invariably  to  be  found. 
That  "  the  hundred  families,"  assumed  by  Chinese  writers  to 
have  founded  their  kingdom  at  an  immensely  remote  date,  were 
not  cannibals  seems,  therefore,  most  probable.  But,  in  default 
of  such  records  as  have  been  found  in  Egypt  and  elsewhere,  all 
attempts  to  reconstruct  accurately  the  growth  of  prehistoric 
China  from  savagery  to  barbarism  must  be  abandoned ;  and  we 
can  only  rely  upon  the  probabilities  suggested  by  traditions 
and  the  practically  invariable  sequence  of  development  in  other 
countries. 

When,  however,  we  come  to  the  feudal  period,  which  played 
a  great  part  in  Chinese  history,  we  arrive  at  records  and  descrip- 


CHINA  161 

tions  which  enable  us  to  be  practically  certain  that  this  great 
epoch  must  have  been  preceded  in  China,  as  elsewhere,  by  tribal 
and  individual  slavery,  developing  into  nobility  and  serfdom. 
The  great  lords  of  Cliina,  like  the  powerful  feudal  chiefs  of  Japan 
and  Western  China,  were  engaged  in  constant  warfare  with  one 
another,  and  resorted  to  all  the  ruffianism,  cruelty  and  treachery 
which  has  distinguished  this  caste  throughout  the  planet  where 
civiUsation  has  reached  that  stage.  We  have  in  China,  in  fact, 
further  clear  proof  in  the  annals  of  Confucius,  commented  upon 
by  his  editor,  Tso,  that  here,  too,  the  wholly  unconscious  and 
socially  uncontrollable  growth  of  man  in  society  follows  certain 
well-defined  lines,  though  the  time  prescribed  by  material  con- 
ditions may  be  longer  or  shorter  in  different  regions.  In  China 
the  feudal  period  endured  for  many  centuries  and  entailed  upon 
the  inhabitants  endless  troubles. 

The  Chow  dynasty,  which  lasted  nearly  nine  hundred  years 
(1112  to  249  B.C.),  was  itself,  apparently,  only  the  most  important 
line  of  many  rulers  who  carried  on  intestine  strife,  independent 
of  the  central  authority  assumed  to  be  controUing  them.  Not 
until  the  downfall  of  the  Chow  family  and  the  rise  of  Si-Whang- 
Ti,  of  the  short-lived  Tsin  dynasty,  did  China  become  in  any 
sense  a  consohdated  Imperial  state.  This  monarch  subdued 
all  his  rival  princelets,  defeated  the  Tartar  hordes  which  had 
been  pursuing  their  accustomed  business  of  slaughter  and 
rapine  with  exceptional  success,  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
Chow  rule,  built  the  Great  Wall  to  check  further  Tartar  in- 
vasions, and  played  in  China,  with  respect  to  the  feudalism  of 
the  great  chieftains,  a  similar  part  to  that  performed  very  many 
centuries  later  by  Louis  XI.  in  France.  But  Tartar  invasions 
from  the  west  and  north  were  ever  the  bane  of  the  Empire. 
The  Chinese  reckon  that  there  have  been  no  fewer  than  twenty- 
two  such  invasions,  many  of  which  ended  in  establishing  Tartar 
dynasties  on  the  throne.  How  it  came  about  that  the  Chinese 
race,  which  had  shown  such  great  courage  and  capacity  in  their 
battles  among  themselves  during  the  entire  feudal  period,  and 
had  also  been  able  to  overcome  the  Tartars  under  their  native 
monarchs  and  generals,  endured  these  invasions  is  not  easy  to 
decide.  But  certainly,  notwithstanding  the  great  energy  and 
fighting  capacity  they  displayed  under  the  leadership  of  the 
famous  Chinese  Buddhist  priest  who  founded  the  native  Ming 


162  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

dynasty,  they  gradually  became  the  most  pacific  people  on 
earth,  and  regarded  a  soldier  almost  as  a  pariah.  It  was  this 
spirit  which  enabled  the  Manchus,  who  had  aided  the  descend- 
ants of  the  Ming  emperors  against  other  Tartars,  to  establish 
themselves  on  the  throne  from  which  they  have  been  recently 
displaced. 

Revolutions  in  China,  until  within  the  last  hundred  years, 
have,  so  far  as  is  known,  taken  the  shape  of  revolts  against 
Tartar  rule.  Yet  we  may  be  sure  that  the  overthrow  of  feudal- 
ism and  the  permanent  settlement  of  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  Chinese  families  as  free  cultivators  on  their  own  plots  of  land 
were  not  brought  about  without  a  long  struggle  and  probably 
much  bloodshed.  But  these  risings  against  the  Tartars,  success- 
ful or  unsuccessful,  and  even  the  details  of  the  economic  and 
social  struggle  which  secured  the  mass  of  the  people  ownership 
of  their  own  soil  and  the  right  to  cultivate  it,  are  not  so  important 
as  the  fact  that  the  Chinese,  owing  to  their  far  superior  civilisa- 
tion and  power  of  administration,  were  able  to  maintain  peace- 
fully their  own  system  of  government  under  all  intruders  and, 
by  degrees,  almost  to  absorb  their  own  conquerors. 

Why  this  people,  who  so  far  anticipated  Western  Europe  in 
many  directions,  who  developed  commerce,  banks  and  trade 
generally,  and  displayed  capacity  in  so  many  departments,  with 
a  disposition  to  peaceful  emigration,  whose  settlements  have 
been  traced  on  the  east  coast  of  Africa — why  the  Chinese  should 
have  ceased  to  progress  in  the  European  sense,  or  to  carry  further 
those  inventions  and  discoveries  which  placed  their  forefathers 
ahead  of  the  white  peoples,  seems  impossible  to  determine. 
They  reached  a  certain  point,  and  there  they  remained  until 
contact  with  the  highly  developed  civilisation  of  Western 
Europe  has  started  them  afresh  on  the  lines  of  economic,  social 
and  political  development,  as  the  same  contact  had  previously, 
and  more  rapidly,  influenced  Japan. 

It  is  easy,  however,  to  discern  and  understand  what  has  main- 
tained China  and  the  Chinese  for  so  many  centuries  on  a  low 
plane  of  personal  well-being  and  has  secured  for  them  such  pro- 
longed ages  of  internal  peace.  All  may  be  summed  up  in  their 
devotion  to  agriculture  on  a  small  scale,  with  direct  personal 
ownership  of  the  soil  they  cultivate ;  the  continuance  of  handi- 
craft; the  partial  influence  of  the  customs  of  the  old  village 


CHINA  163 

communities  ;  the  permanent  sanctity  of  family  life ;  deference 
to  the  father  and  the  elders  of  the  community,  in  spite  of  the 
somewhat  onerous  ties  thus  imposed  ;  the  ancestor-worship  and 
reverence  for  the  dead  which  has  prevailed  under  every  form  of 
religion,  indigenous  or  imported ;  the  simple  and  to  the  Chinese 
quite  sufficient  system  of  the  ethics  and  directions  of  Confucius 
— all  these,  taken  together  and  handed  on  from  generation  to 
generation,  have  had  a  remarkably  conservative  influence. 
The  maintenance  of  agriculture  and  its  fostering  as  the  basis  of 
all  prosperity,  and  by  far  the  most  important  national  in- 
dustry and  business,  were  the  foundation  of  the  whole  life  of  the 
people.  This  was  the  view  of  one  of  the  great  invading  Emperors. 
He  took  care  to  enforce  it  by  enactment  and  decree,  and  his 
policy  was  followed  by  his  successors.  Trade,  though  never 
directly  interfered  with,  was  long  officially  discouraged,  and  the 
accumulation  of  riches  in  few  hands  was  as  far  as  possible  pre- 
vented. Mining  for  the  precious  metals  and  precious  stones 
was  not  only  hampered  by  Imperial  disapproval,  but  was 
rendered  a  punishable  offence  under  Imperial  decree.  This  was 
avowedly  done  in  order  to  prevent  waste  of  labour  upon  what 
was  regarded  from  on  high  as  an  unprofitable  and  even  injurious 
expenditure  of  force.  Thus  the  extremest  views  of  the  French 
physiocrats  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  to  the  supreme  posi- 
tion of  agriculture,  were  held  and  enforced  upon  their  subjects 
centuries  before  by  Chinese  Emperors  and  their  advisers. 

Their  stringent  laws  on  this  head,  though  of  course  frequently 
evaded,  produced,  in  the  main,  the  effect  intended  by  ordinance 
from  above,  to  an  extent  and  for  a  length  of  time  that  could 
scarcely  have  been  anticipated.  It  is,  indeed,  an  exceptional 
example  of  what  may  be  done  by  Government  interference 
exercised  among  a  peaceful,  law-abiding  people.  By  unre- 
mitting labour,  by  the  use  of  human  sources  of  fertilisation 
wliich  prevented  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil,  by  assiduous  family 
service,  they  have  preserved  their  social  system  unchanged  for 
centuries.  Prices  were  kept  low  by  decree,  and  by  the  refusal 
to  pennit  an  expensive  currency.  There  has  been  no  stereo- 
t}^d  caste  nor  dominant  ancestral  priesthood  in  China.  Local 
institutions  have  been  little  modified.  Education  has  been  and 
is  common  to  all.  Foreigners,  unless  and  until  they  made  them- 
selves politically  or  socially  obnoxious,  were  welcomed — Marco 


164  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Polo's  father  was  made  a  viceroy  ;  the  Jesuits,  so  long  as  they 
confined  themselves  to  promulgating  their  religion,  were  most 
favourably  treated.  The  highest  administrative  positions  were 
open  to  the  lowest  in  the  land  through  examinations.  Assuredly 
we  have  here  a  system  of  society  which  might  compare  favour- 
ably with  that  of  any  civilised  nation  at  any  period. 

Incidentally  it  may  be  observed  that  the  economic  foundation 
was  and  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  same  as  that  of  India. 
Nevertheless  the  difference  in  the  superstructure  of  the  two 
great  empires  is  astonishing.  There  can  be  no  real  comparison 
between  them.  Yet  in  neither  has  there  been  any  serious  social 
revolution  for  hundreds  of  years.  The  bearing  of  this  fact  upon 
a  famous  theory  of  sociological  determinism,  much  discussed 
of  late,  which  an  active  school  of  thinkers  and  writers  claim 
solves  all  the  great  problems  of  historic  evolution,  will  be  seen 
later. 

The  most  important  attempt  at  revolution  in  China  in  modern 
times  began  in  1850,  and  was  known  as  the  Tai-ping  rebellion. 
This  great  revolt,  though  generally  regarded  as  an  upheaval 
directed  against  the  Manchu  dynasty  for  the  purpose  of  again 
establishing  a  native  Chinese  dynasty — such  as  the  Ming,  which 
was  replaced  by  the  Manchus  in  1643 — had  also  other  objects  in 
view.  That  they  were  entirely  hostile  to  the  Manchu  Govern- 
ment of  Peking,  and  from  the  first  discarded  the  queue,  the 
special  symbol  of  Chinese  subjection,  enforced  upon  Chinese 
males  by  the  Tartar  Emperors,  shows  that  social  as  well  as  re- 
ligious ideas  were  bound  up  with  the  movement.  In  fact  there 
seems  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  Chinese  in  at  least  two  of 
the  greatest  provinces  were  desirous  of  a  complete  change  of 
their  system  of  government,  which  should  lead  to  a  new  develop- 
ment of  a  progressive  character.  Having  lain  so  long  on  one 
side,  they  thought  it  might  be  well  to  turn  over  and  lie  upon  the 
other — a  phenomenon  which  had  possibly  occurred  before,  and 
stirred  all  Asia,  at  previous  epochs  in  Chinese  history.  It  is  at 
least  improbable  that  any  new  religion,  such  as  that  attributed 
to  the  schoolmaster  Hung-Siu-Chuen,  could  by  itself  have  pro- 
duced the  tremendous  effect  of  the  Tai-ping  rising.  That  Hung, 
the  leader,  should  have  claimed  a  semi-divine  character  and 
have  propounded  doctrines  more  in  accordance  with  the  old 
Buddhist  teachings  than  with  their  corruption  in  modern  times 


CHINA  165 

is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  course  that  socio-supernatural 
propaganda  takes  not  only  in  Asia  but  in  Europe  also.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  he  should  have  tried 
to  induce  the  Chinese  to  adopt  any  form  of  Christianity,  this 
reUgion  having  always  been  very  unpopular  in  China,  since  the 
Catholics  tried  to  turn  the  legitimate  influence  gained  by 
the  Jesuit  doctors  and  men  of  science  to  political  ends.  In  any 
event,  the  people  were  ready  for  a  desperate  effort  against  Tartar 
rule  and  against  certain  worn-out  institutions,  while  reUgious 
enthusiasm,  combined  with  patriotism  and  an  impatient  yearn- 
ing for  change  unknown  in  China  for  generations,  made  the  Tai- 
ping  rebellion  exceedingly  formidable.  The  discontent  of  all 
the  long  years  of  quiescence  was  concentrated  in  the  attempt  at 
a  complete  revolution  led  by  Hung  and  supported  by  some  able 
generals.  We  have  never  yet  had  a  clear  account  of  this  power- 
ful national  movement,  which,  beginning  its  serious  attack  under 
arms  in  1852,  was  for  some  time  one  long  succession  of  victories 
and  conquests.  Sweeping  down  the  valley  of  the  Yang-tse- 
Kiang  and  capturing  the  great  city  of  Nanking,  the  rebellion 
gathered  nearly  the  whole  of  Southern  China  behind  it,  and 
for  twelve  whole  years  threatened  to  overthrow  altogether  the 
existing  government  and  to  set  on  foot  a  new,  and  probably 
more  enUghtened,  rule.  In  this,  without  foreign  intervention, 
they  would  probably  have  succeeded. 

Most  unfortunately,  as  it  must  now  seem  to  any  imprejudiced 
observer,  the  Europeans  in  China,  and  in  particular  the  famous 
but  ignorant  and  fanatical  General  Gordon,  thought  proper  to 
take  the  part  of  the  Manchu  Emperor  and  his  degraded  foreign 
Court  against  the  Chinese  patriots  who  were  striving  for  the 
emancipation  of  their  country,  for  better  conditions  of  life  for 
themselves  and  their  people,  and  for  a  rehgion  which  the  white 
men  themselves  thought  was  a  form  of  Christianity.  Gordon's 
"  Ever-Victorious  Army,"  manned  by  Chinese  but  officered  by 
Enghsh  officers,  with  some  help  from  the  French,  achieved  the 
glory,  in  1864,  after  the  Tai-pings  had  conquered  fifteen  out  of 
eighteen  provinces,  and  had  prepared  the  way  for  a  final  triumph, 
of  reimposing  the  despotic  authority  of  the  Manchus  upon  China 
for  nearly  fifty  years.  However  ruthless  the  Tai-pings  may 
have  been  in  their  day  of  success,  that  was  the  affair  of  their 
own  countrymen.    It  was  assuredly  not  the  business  of  English 


166  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  Scottish  military  men  to  devote  themselves  to  obtaining 
victory  for  the  Manchus  or  for  the  butcherly  Chinese  viceroy, 
Li-Hung-Chang,  who,  despite  Gordon's  personal  guarantee  of 
the  safety  of  their  lives  if  they  surrendered,  massacred  and 
tortured  to  death  the  Scottish  general's  prisoners  in  cold  blood. 
It  has  been  estimated  that,  in  the  course  of  this  great  civil  war, 
some  twenty  millions  of  Chinese  were  slaughtered  during  and 
after  the  period  of  hostilities,  extending  over  twelve  years.  The 
Chinese  people  gained  nothing  by  the  defeat  of  the  Tai-pings  : 
the  Manchus  alone  benefited.  It  is  one  of  the  small  ironies  of 
history  that  "  Chinese  Gordon  "  was  really  "  Manchu  Gordon." 
Probably  the  greatest  single  event  in  the  thousands  of  years 
of  the  annals  of  the  Middle  Kingdom,  and  perhaps  of  all  Asia, 
was  the  defeat  of  the  Chinese  armies  by  Japan  in  1894-1895. 
Directly  and  indirectly  it  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  great 
Chinese  Revolution.  European  influences  had  revolutionised 
feudal  Japan :  European  influences,  acting  through  Japan, 
were  now  to  revolutionise  the  great  Empire  whose  teachers  had 
civilised  the  Japanese  centuries  before.  Ideas  which  all  the 
efforts  of  merchants,  financiers  and  missionaries  from  the  West 
had  failed  to  impress  permanently  upon  the  rulers  and  people 
of  China  were  suddenly  forced  to  fruition  by  a  great  defeat.  It 
was  owing  to  her  acceptance  of  these  European  ideas,  of  modern 
education,  modern  industrialism  and,  above  all,  of  modem 
weapons  that  Japan  had  been  enabled  to  win  with  ease  in  the 
struggle  against  China,  contrary  to  the  expectations  of  many 
European  residents  in  the  Chinese  Treaty  Ports.  But  for 
European  interference,  Japan  would  have  followed  the  rule  of 
Asiatic  conquerors,  and  her  Mikado  and  his  pro-consuls,  dis- 
placing the  Manchu  dynasty,  would  have  become  masters  of 
peaceful  China  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Consciousness  of 
the  inability  of  China  under  existing  conditions  to  resist  by  her- 
self the  growing  power  of  Japan  led  the  Manchu  emperor, 
Huang-Su,  to  accept  "  the  new  learning  "  and  to  endeavour  to 
enforce  it  upon  his  Chinese  subjects.  No  such  extraordinary 
effort  by  a  ruling  monarch  to  meet  the  development  of  a  new 
period  and  bring  about  a  material,  psychological  and  social 
revolution  had  ever  been  made  before.  To  attempt  to  carry 
through  a  policy  of  transforming  the  entire  social  and  political 
and  military  life  of  some  four  hundred  millions  of  people,  edu- 


CHINA  167 

cated  and  intelligent  though  they  were,  by  capable  initiative 
from  above,  was  a  stupendous  task  which  might  well  have  been 
considered  foredoomed  to  failure.  Yet  if  the  metropolis  of 
China  had  been  situated  at  Nanking  instead  of  at  Peking,  had 
Huang-Su  been  able  to  emancipate  himself,  even  by  familiar 
Asiatic  methods,  from  his  immediate  Manchu  surroimdings,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  this  unprecedented  experiment  would  have 
been  successful  in  the  hands  of  this  one  reigning  emperor. 

The  Tai-pings,  though  beaten  at  last  by  European  organisers 
— in  itseK  a  lesson  to  Cliina  if  she  could  but  have  read  it — had 
shown,  nearly  fifty  years  before,  how  inimical  the  vast,  purely 
Chinese  pro\'inces  of  the  south  and  west  were  to  unenlightened 
despotism  from  the  north ;  and  since  then  disaffection  and  desire 
for  a  new  development  had  widely,  though  silently,  spread. 
China  as  a  whole  was,  therefore,  far  more  ready  to  embrace  a 
fresh  dispensation  than  was  generally  understood,  when  Huang- 
Su  embarked  upon  his  marvellous  programme  of  Imperial  re- 
forms which  were  destined  to  bring  about  so  terrible  a  reaction. 

But  Huang-Su's  intellectual  comprehension  ran  ahead  of  his 
political  and  practical  judgment.  Manchu  though  he  was,  he 
saw  what  was  indispensably  necessary  for  the  well-being  and 
even  for  the  safety  of  the  Chinese  people,  and  he  set  to  work  at 
once  to  put  what  he  knew  was  essential  in  theory  into  immediate 
operation.  The  edicts  and  decrees  issued  by  Huang-Su  were 
undoubtedly  designed  and  calculated  to  revolutionise  China 
more  completely  and  more  rapidly  than  Japan  herself  had  been 
transformed.  Chinese  education,  Chinese  organisation,  Chinese 
transport,  Chinese  jurisprudence  and  the  Chinese  military  system 
were  to  be  rushed  up  to  the  level  of  the  most  advanced  European 
nations  all  at  once.  At  every  step  Huang-Su  took  the  ad^ace  of 
Kang-Yu-Wei,  a  Chinese  official  who  had  made  a  special  study 
of  the  great  changes  in  Japan,  but  whose  views  had  previously 
been  disregarded.  The  Emperor  grasped  them  thoroughly  and 
tried  to  realise  them  simultaneously.  He  consequently  roused 
against  his  entire  poUcy  all  the  reactionary  interests,  including 
the  two  most  powerful  of  all — the  Manchu  functionaries.  Court 
officials,  dependents  and  their  hangers-on,  as  well  as  the  old 
Conservative  Literati  in  the  upper  grades  of  the  Chinese  ad- 
ministrative service.  It  takes  one's  breath  away  to  read  the 
list  of  Huang-Su's  revolutionary  proposals. 


168  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

New  teaching  of  positive  knowledge  and  European  science, 
new  universities,  new  schools  of  agriculture,  new  laws,  new 
courts,  new  use  of  old  temples,  new  postal  services,  new  armies, 
and  so  on  in  every  direction.  Nor  was  the  Emperor  content 
with  merely  issuing  his  Imperial  decrees,  and  thus  running 
counter  to  the  Tsung-li  Yamen,  the  principal  council  of  the 
Empire,  and  several  of  China's  leading  statesmen.  He  followed 
up  his  edicts  by  the  removal  of  obstacular  old  officials,  and  by 
constant  reminders  to  the  viceroys  of  the  provinces  that  these 
enactments  were  to  be  put  in  force  immediately.  The  wonder 
is  that  the  Emperor  achieved  so  much  as  he  did.  It  is  almost 
impossible,  indeed,  to  exaggerate  the  effect  produced  by  the 
issue  and  publication  of  these  subversive  Imperial  notifications, 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  a  vast  territory  inhabited 
by  400,000,000  people,  nearly  all  of  whom  could  read  and  write 
and  took  an  interest  in  public  affairs.  We  know  by  experience 
how  difficult  it  is,  for  example,  to  introduce  thorough-going 
educational  reforms  in  Great  Britain  even  when  they  have  been 
admitted  to  be  necessary  by  all  the  progressive  elements  in  the 
conmiunity.  Fifty  years  have  failed  to  give  the  people  in  our 
island  a  decent  system  of  education.  Not  only  have  Parliament 
and  the  mass  of  the  people  to  be  convinced,  and  their  narrow 
religious  prejudices  removed,  but  the  greatest  obstacle  of  all, 
the  bureaucratic  spirit  of  official  opposition,  has  to  be  overcome. 
It  is  nothing  short  of  astounding  that  Huang-Su  should  have 
attempted  and  achieved  within  a  few  years  so  much  as  he  did. 

For  a  second,  or  perhaps  a  third,  time  in  the  history  of  China 
an  impetus  was  given  from  the  throne  which  deeply  affected  the 
whole  current  of  Chinese  policy.  And  there  was  no  organised 
resistance  whatever  to  Huang-Su's  reforming  agitation,  from 
the  whole  of  the  great  southern  provinces  ;  notwithstanding  the 
general  and  justifiable  objection  of  the  population  to  the  foreign 
interlopers  who  were  supposed  to  be  not  only  favourable  to,  but 
the  originators  of,  these  subversive  schemes.  That  by  itself 
would  serve  to  show  that  the  people  had  already  been  prepared 
for  a  great  change  in  their  social  conditions,  by  propaganda  from 
a  quarter  very  different  from  that  which  is  generally  associated 
with  Sun-Yat-Sen  and  his  friends. 

And  then  the  serious  reactionary  revolt  known  as  the  Boxer 
Rising,  directed  against  foreigners,  favoured  by  the  Empress, 


CHINA  169 

supported  by  the  whole  anti-popular  Manchu  influence,  and, 
it  is  believed,  secretly  aided  by  Russia,  arose  and  spread  only 
in  those  provinces  which  were  most  under  Manchu  influence. 
Huang-Su  was  dethroned  and  died  in  prison.  But  when  the  full 
history  of  China  during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  comes  to 
be  WTitten  he  will  stand  out  as  one  of  the  very  few  monarchs  who 
ever  risked  his  own  position  and  life  in  an  honest  endeavour  to 
organise  a  peaceful  revolution  for  the  advantage  of  his  people. 
The  Boxer  upheaval  of  reaction,  like  the  Tai-ping  rebellion 
of  progress,  was  suppressed  by  foreign  intervention,  and  it  was 
most  unfortunate  that  a  course  of  action,  which  was  possibly 
justifiable  and  beneficial  in  itself,  should  have  been  disfigured 
by  many  incidents  of  European  greed  and  barbarity.  But  the 
Manchu  dynasty  did  not  long  survive  the  occupation  of  Peking 
by  the  allied  troops.  Upon  its  dethronement  the  long-prepared 
revolution  against  the  Manchus  and  in  favour  of  all  the  measures 
laid  down  by  Huang-Su  broke  out  and  took  the  shape  of  a 
federated  repubUc  China.  What  has  happened  since,  before, 
during  and  after  the  war  is  a  matter  of  recent  record.  The  un- 
fortunate differences  between  the  south  and  the  north  have 
postponed  the  full  realisation  of  the  hopes  which  grew  up  on  the 
instalment  of  the  Repubhc.  The  increasing  menace  of  Japanese 
domination,  as  exempUfied  in  the  policy  of  conquest  and  re- 
pression pursued  in  Korea,  contrary  to  agreement,  together 
with  the  annexation  of  Shantung,  its  30,000,000  of  inhabitants, 
important  geographical  position  and  immense  mineral  resources, 
weighs  heavily  upon  the  vast  but  still  militarily  unorganised 
and  defenceless  Chinese  territory.  Recent  further  demands 
from  the  same  Power  greatly  alarm  Chinese  statesmen.  Should 
this  Japanese  movement  be  averted  by  European  and  American 
action,  then  the  near  future  will  probably  see  the  most  in- 
dividualist, industrious  and  conservative  nation  in  the  world 
gradually  and  peacefully  transformed  into  the  greatest  co- 
operative community  of  all  civilised  peoples.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  aggressive  Japanese  succeed  in  obtaining  control 
over  China,  with  her  overwhelming  possibilities  of  develop- 
ment, the  Far  East  of  Asia  might  become  at  once  a  very 
grave  danger  to  the  white  civilisations.^ 

*The  position  of  China  in  relation  to  Japan  is  dealt  with  in  my   The 
Awakening  of  Asia. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CHAOS 

When  the  great  series  of  successful  barbarian  invasions  began, 
which  extended  from  the  North  to  the  Black  Sea,  the  Roman 
Empire  had  ceased  to  be  much  more  than  an  elaborate  instru- 
ment for  organised  taxation  of  the  most  ruthless  kind.  Rome 
was  no  longer  the  capital  in  any  real  sense.  The  Emperors 
almost  ostentatiously  proclaimed  themselves  absentees.  Local 
and  national  freedoms  were  crushed,  and  the  Latin  language,  in 
various  forms  of  debasement,  was  the  prevailing  tongue  through- 
out this  vast  dominion.  The  mass  of  the  cultivators  were 
plunged  into  poverty  by  exactions  of  every  kind  which  they  could 
not  successfully  resist ;  while  the  uncertainty  of  their  position, 
should  they  succeed  in  raising  themselves  above  the  general  level 
of  want,  discoiu-aged  progress  in  every  way.  Officials  were  no 
longer  administrators  even  of  a  corrupt  type  ;  they  were,  as  a 
rule,  nothing  better  than  tax-gathering  extortioners.  At  the 
same  time  the  roads,  both  general  and  local,  highroads  and  dis- 
trict roads  together,  were  falling  into  ruin,  and  transport,  except 
by  water,  was  becoming  more  difficult  and  costly  than  ever. 

All  this  escaped  notice  under  a  temporarily  peaceful  ruler, 
who  insisted  upon  tranquilhty  and  decent  honesty  within  the 
limits  of  his  jurisdiction.  This  shows  that  sufficient  means  of 
creating  wealth,  even  under  a  system  of  production  in  transi- 
tion, still  existed,  but  were  dried  up  at  their  source  by  wholesale 
maladministration  and  malversation.  Raids  by  barbarians, 
ten'ible  as  they  were,  proved  less  ruinous  than  the  entire  break- 
down of  trustworthy  government  during  the  intervals  of  de- 
vastation. Universal  experience  has  shown,  in  all  agricultural 
countries  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  that  such 
territories  rapidly  recover  from  the  most  apparently  destructive 
razzias,  when  peace  and  settled  rule  are  restored  after  the  attacks. 
Only  when  the  process  of  restoration  is  hampered  by  injustice, 
over-taxation  and  oppression  within  does  permanent  poverty 

170 


CHAOS  171 

ovenvhelm  a  society  mainly  composed  of  cultivators.  The 
barbarians  themselves  came  in  as  settlers  and  colonisers  as 
much  as  conquerors.  In  some  cases  this  was  almost  welcome. 
The  Goths,  Visigoths,  Ostrogoths  and  the  Germanic  tribes 
generally,  moved  probably  by  increase  of  population  beyond 
what  their  cleared  areas  would  support,  and  pushed  onwards 
by  incursions  of  other  hordes  from  the  East,  of  which  we 
possess  no  clear  record,  continued  their  attacks,  systematically, 
for  more  than  tlu-ee  centuries  and  a  half  before  the  Empire 
lay  completely  at  their  mercy  and  open  to  their  full  subjugation. 
Scarcely  any  section  of  the  vast  area  covered  by  the  old  Roman 
State  was  free  from  their  conquering  march,  though  the  general 
success  of  the  Roman  army  on  the  battle-field  and  judicious  bribes 
and  subsidies  arrested  their  advance  for  the  time.  The  amount 
of  these  subventions  to  leaders  of  the  Gk)thic  armies,  which  were 
paid  with  apparent  ease  in  gold  by  the  Emperors  at  Constanti- 
nople, shows  that,  in  the  East  at  least,  the  marked  dearth  of  the 
precious  metals,  which  had  so  thoroughly  transformed  the  basis 
of  production  in  the  West,  was  not  of  long  endurance.  The  claim 
of  the  Roman  Empire  to  world-wide  power,  as  the  defender  and 
organiser  of  the  populations  within  its  boundaries,  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  course  of  events.  Its  right  to  rule  because  it 
promoted  the  well-being  of  its  subjects  had  been  challenged  by 
its  own  action,  before  the  barbarians  had  proved  that  civilisa- 
tion, in  its  period  of  preparation  for  a  new  outlet,  could  not 
resist,  either  mihtarily  or  economically,  the  inroads  of  peoples  in 
a  lower  stage  of  development. 

Periods  of  relative  peace  were  followed  by  still  more  and 
greater  attacks ;  or  else,  to  make  confusion  worse  confounded, 
the  bands  of  depredators  fell  out  among  themselves,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  carried  on  conflict  with  the  Romans,  thus 
introducing  the  horrors  of  civil  war  into  the  maelstrom  of  general 
social  disorder.  It  was  the  result  of  one  of  these  intestine 
struggles  that  gave  Italy,  not  from  Rome  but  from  Ravenna, 
the  only  generation  of  steady  and  beneficent  rule  which  she 
had  known  since  the  Antonines.  The  barbarian  Theodoric, 
who,  history  tells  us,  though  brought  up  in  courts,  could  not 
write  his  own  name — a  sort  of  Hyder  Ali  of  the  West — so  ordered 
matters  in  the  original  portion  of  the  Roman  dominions  that  a 
new  era  of  prosperity  seemed  to  have  dawned  for  the  whole 


172  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

peninsula.  Two  hundred  thousand  fighting  men,  with  their 
full  proportion  of  women  and  children,  came  over  the  Julian 
Alps  in  winter,  repeopled  a  considerable  portion  of  the  territory 
and,  under  the  stern  dictatorship  of  their  leader,  taught  the 
Italians  that  an  illiterate  Goth  with  his  Arian  belief  might 
exercise  a  better  influence  than  the  most  learned  of  the  orthodox, 
destitute  of  the  faculty  of  leading  and  governing  men.  But  even 
a  man  of  genius  could  not  permanently  control  the  current  of 
events.  As  nominal  Vice-Emperor  of  the  Master  of  Constanti- 
nople it  is  wonderful  that  he  achieved  what  he  did.  Elsewhere 
in  the  West  the  social  and  economic  chaos  went  on  much  as  it 
did  before.  A  steady  policy,  based  upon  a  sound  system  of 
agriculture,  may  restrain  or  entirely  hold  back  commercial  and 
monetary  growth  for  generations  and  even  for  centuries.  But 
failing  the  continuance  of  such  conscious  pressure  from  above, 
the  economic  development  gradually,  though  very  slowly,  works 
its  way  on. 

The  decadent  Roman  Empire  was  thus  the  scene  of  the 
most  remarkable  experiment  in  the  history  of  mankind.  This 
was  nothing  less  than  an  endeavour  to  accommodate  within 
its  boundaries  a  great  succession  of  untutored  but  warlike 
tribes  to  a  civilisation  which  it  was  not  for  generations  within 
their  power  to  understand  or  accept.  Though  the  Germanic 
hordes  before  and  after  the  struggle  between  Odoacer  and 
Theodoric  and  their  wonderful  irruptions  over  Gaul  and  Spain, 
Italy,  Sicily,  Africa,  the  east  of  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  had 
grown  on  their  own  lines,  since  their  life  and  customs  had  been 
described  by  Caesar  and  Tacitus,  they  were  still  in  the  gentile 
period  of  development.  Their  kings  and  chieftains  were  the 
heads  of  great  semi-nomadic  communities  among  whom  the 
relations  were  based  upon  blood  ties.  Their  land  cultivation 
and  ownership  was,  in  its  essence,  the  limited  communism  of 
the  village  community  and  the  mark.  Their  tribes  possessed 
slaves  and  their  kings  controlled  the  tribes  and  confederations 
of  tribes  in  their  war  expeditions  and  acted  as  their  leaders  in 
peace  surroimded  by  the  Council  of  Nobles.  But  the  tribesmen, 
notwithstanding  their  personal  deference  to  their  rulers,  were 
freemen ;  and  their  military  discipline  was  of  a  very  different 
character  from  the  rigid  control  exercised  over  highly  paid  and 
highly  subsidised  troops  by  successful  Roman  generals. 


CHAOS  173 

It  is  scarcely  surprising  that  during  the  long  period  of  con- 
fusion, while  the  organisation  of  the  Roman  State  was  broken 
up,  no  satisfactory^  explanation  of  the  position  of  the  cultivators 
in  the  rural  districts  or  of  the  workers  in  the  towns  has  ever 
been  given.  A  full  account  of  the  economic  and  social  relations 
and  especially  of  the  lower  grades  of  toilers  from  the  remaining 
slaves  upwards  has  been  rendered  more  difficult  of  attainment 
by  the  conflict  between  the  Germanic  and  Latin  writers  as  to 
the  respective  influence  of  Teutonic  and  Roman  institutions 
tliroughout  Europe.  This  controversy  upon  the  real  meaning 
of  the  facts  of  historic  development  has  been  conducted  on 
both  sides  vnih  a  racial  rancour  which  carried  with  it  almost 
a  religious  virulence.  Even  writers  of  great  learning  who  have 
gone  into  the  fray  destitute  of  prejudice  in  favour  of  either 
party,  and  have  considered  the  questions  at  issue  from  the 
standpoint  of  nations  not  immediately  concerned  in  the  evolu- 
tion, seem  unable  to  keep  clear  of  a  certain  partisanship.  The 
antagonism  between  Roman  and  Teuton  from  the  fourth  and 
fifth  to  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  of  our  era  has  thus  been 
carried  from  the  field  and  the  farm,  the  villa  and  the  city  of  old, 
into  the  lecture-rooms  and  libraries  of  our  own  times. 

Not  until  the  feudal  system  was  constituted  which  grew  up 
in,  and  out  of,  the  welter  of  disturbance  during  the  intervening 
centuries,  does  a  distinct  and  recognisable  class  of  oppressed 
humanity,  answering  in  any  degree  to  the  great  slave  aggrega- 
tions of  antiquity,  appear  below  the  series  of  personal  and  pro- 
perty, country  and  towTiship  antagonisms,  engendered  by  the 
unconscious  endeavour  to  reduce  this  vast  economic  and  social 
chaos  to  some  sort  of  order.  But  this  endeavour,  which  was 
general  rather  than  coUective,  appears  to  have  been  essentially 
a  blind  and  unconscious  movement.  No  guiding  inteUigence 
whatever  can  be  discerned  from  beginning  to  end.  Not  even 
the  Catholic  Church,  which  exercised  so  great  a  material  and 
semi-supernatm-al  influence,  nor  the  ablest  of  the  civiHan  states- 
men even  conceived,  or  could  put  into  operation  a  clear  pohcy. 
The  barbarians,  who  came  in  to  obtain  wider  scope  for  their 
increasing  numbers,  had  a  more  intelligible  idea  of  what  they 
desired  to  achieve  than  the  feudal  kings  and  barons  with  their 
feudatory  chiefs  and  retainers  who  constituted  the  social  and 
economic  institutions  which  succeeded  them. 


174  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

With  the  infinite  complexities  of  the  feudal  arrangements 
we  have  in  this  connection  nothing  to  do.  They  varied  greatly 
in  each  province  of  what  was  once  Roman  territory,  and  have 
little  more  direct  bearing  upon  the  modified  forms  of  slavery 
and  serfdom,  which  underlay  them  all,  than  the  different 
standards  of  slave-owning  existence,  in  various  regions,  when 
Rome  was  at  the  height  of  her  power,  affected  the  chattel  slaves 
who  were  the  principal  agents  of  production,  rural  and  urban. 
Serfs  and  villeins  and  peasants  were  the  human  instruments 
upon  whose  labours  the  whole  superstructure  was  built. 

The  actual  forms  of  production  remained  much  what  they 
had  been  for  centuries,  or  even  thousands  of  years,  before. 
Improvements  in  agriculture,  such  as  the  three-course  or  two- 
course  system  of  husbandry,  in  place  of  the  continuous  cropping 
of  the  same  acreage,  somewhat  superior  ploughs  and  other 
tools,  and  even  some  improvement  of  roads  connecting  the 
monasteries,  as  in  England,  did  not  change  the  general  methods 
of  cultivation.  Nor  did  they  affect  the  dependence,  economic 
and  political,  of  the  towns  upon  the  country,  which  was  so  great 
a  change  from  the  supremacy  of  the  cities  over  the  country 
during  the  Empire.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  clear  modification 
of  the  methods  of  production  themselves,  either  among  the 
cultivators  or  the  artisans,  which  would  account  for  the  altera- 
tion in  the  superstructure.  The  alterations  in  the  relations 
between  classes  above  and  below  were  due,  not  to  any  marked 
advances  in  the  command  of  man  over  nature,  but  to  the  in- 
evitable effort  of  one  form  of  society  to  adapt  its  general 
arrangements  to  another  form,  which,  disposing  of  similar 
means  of  production,  was  itself  at  another  stage  of  human  social 
development.  During  this  period  of  complicated  resettlement 
there  were  local  revolts  of  the  downtrodden  classes,  some 
recorded,  and  many  more  probably  of  which  we  possess  no 
account. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  more  or  less  communal  forms 
which  the  invading  tribes  brought  with  them  into  Europe 
greatly  influenced  the  long  stage  of  development  which  led  up 
to  the  establishment  of  feudalism.  The  basis  of  feudalism  in 
the  first  instance  was  miUtary  tenure  and  personal  relations. 
But  village  communities  with  communal  arrangements  and  the 
culture  of  open  fields  in  strips  were  to  be  found  all  over  Europe, 


CHAOS  175 

below  the  military  tenures  and  the  status  of  free  fighting  men. 
It  is  not  possible  to  go  direct  from  the  Roman  institutions  of 
slavery,  coloni  attached  to  the  soil  as  serfs,  coloni  who  were  not 
so  attached  but  free  after  paying  their  tribute,  or  the  really 
free  workers  in  country  or  town.  Neither  is  it  possible  to 
connect  the  Roman  villa  and  its  "  villicus,"  or  superintendent 
acting  on  behalf  of  the  proprietor,  with  the  manor  and  its  lord 
or  his  bailiff,  any  more  than  we  can  bridge  over  the  difference 
between  the  "  college  "  of  Roman  artisans  and  the  guilds  of  the 
towns  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Roman  law  and  Roman  institutions 
generally  had,  however,  an  increasing  influence  both  before 
and  during  the  consolidation  of  Feudalism,  as  the  main  social 
organisation  of  the  time.  Slavery  in  its  old  form  had  ceased 
to  be  economically  advantageous ;  but,  as  already  said,  it  had 
lasted  long  enough  to  cast  a  slur  upon  the  performance  of  all 
productive  labour. 

Coloni,  free  coloni  and  actually  free  farmers  were  also  in  such 
constant  fear  of  all  forms  of  robbery,  ofiicial  and  unofficial, 
that,  even  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  still  in  being,  they 
placed  themselves  and  their  property  under  the  control  of  men 
of  wealth  who  possessed  enough  influence,  and  possibly  sufficient 
retainers,  to  protect  them  from  absolute  ruin.  In  order  to 
obtain  reward  for  this  protection  and  attach  their  subordinates 
personally  to  themselves,  the  great  landowners  insisted  upon 
having  the  titles  of  the  smaller  owners  transferred  to  them. 
That  gave  unscrupulous  owners  absolute  power.  So  heavy  did 
various  exactions  and  demands  consequently  become  that  in 
many  districts  barbarian  invasion  was  preferred  to  Roman 
domination.  Landlord  protection,  in  fact,  took  the  form  of 
landlord  expropriation  wherever  this  seemed  advantageous. 
^Vllether  Goth,  Visigoth  or  Vandal  overcame  their  own  domestic 
economic  and  social  tyrants  was,  therefore,  of  small  account 
to  the  cultivators  if  they  themselves,  the  victims  in  any  case, 
escaped  slaughter.  The  barbarians  merely  did  at  a  blow  what 
the  native  landowners  and  ex-proprietors  did  by  degrees :  they 
proclaimed  themselves  owners  and  masters  in  collective  right 
under  their  princes  and  chiefs  (who  developed  in  time  into 
monarchs  and  nobles)  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  con- 
quered territory.  Gentile  society  of  kinship  merged  partially 
into  what  remained  of  the  people  of  Roman  descent.     Ties  of 


176  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

blood  were  replaced  by  ties  of  personal  allegiance  to  the  victori- 
ous leaders ;  by  ties  of  material  interest ;  or  by  the  semi- 
communal  arrangements  of  the  village  community  passing 
onwards  into  the  manor.  But  in  all  the  later  stages  of  this 
coalesced  development  which  differed  considerably  in  different 
parts  of  Europe  there  was  no  such  thing  as  absolute  individual 
freedom. 

Everyone  in  the  community,  from  the  lowest  unfree  villein 
or  feudal  serf  through  the  various  gradations  up  to  the  highest 
noble  or  king,  had  his  place  marked  out  for  him  by  customs, 
rights  and  local  arrangements  which  were  stronger  than  any 
laws,  but  were  liable  to  be  translated  in  the  interest  of  the 
holders  of  forces  at  command  which  were  stronger  still.  Only 
by  slow  degrees  did  the  economic  and  social  order  make  headway 
against  the  habitual  infractions  of  beneficial  conventions.  And 
this  was  the  case  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  The 
sixth  and  seventh  centm'ies,  which  are  regarded  as  the  climax 
of  disorder,  were  little  if  at  all  worse  for  the  mass  of  the  people 
than  those  which  followed.  So  much  of  civilisation,  in  any 
sense,  as  survived  was  confined  to  the  small  wealthy  class, 
including  the  clergy,  who  were  to  the  full  as  cruel  and  unscrupu- 
lous in  their  oppression  as  the  most  ignorant  and  brutal  of  the 
lay  lords.  The  temporal  power  of  great  possessions  sanctified 
by  ecclesiastical  privilege,  strengthened  by  the  monopoly  of 
legal  fraud  and  the  custody  of  documents,  written  and  retained 
by  themselves,  gave  the  Christian  Church  an  authority  over  the 
poor  of  every  grade  exceeding  that  of  the  lay  lords  of  the  soil. 
Though  also  they  might,  for  purposes  of  their  own,  enjoin 
emancipation  of  serfs  and  villeins  upon  others  and  maintain  a 
right  of  asylum  within  their  sanctuaries,  none  were  so  slow  to 
recognise  the  freedom  of  men  on  their  own  properties  as  the 
heads  of  organised  Catholicism  in  those  troubled  times. 

The  serfs  and  villeins,  consequently,  had  less  protection 
against  unendurable  tyranny  than  their  immediate  forbears 
the  slaves  under  the  later  Roman  emperors.  But  when  the 
whole  of  this  long  epoch  is  surveyed  from  the  gradual  cessation 
of  the  Germanic  invasions,  the  permanent  settlement  of  these 
bands  of  barbarians  upon  the  conquered  territory,  the  final 
collapse  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  West  with  its  state  organisa- 
tion up  to  the  establishment  of  Feudalism  as  a  recognised  in- 


CHAOS  177 

stitution,  it  is  still  impossible  to  trace  the  details  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  new  forms  of  human  exploitation  with  sufficient 
accuracy  through  these  ages  of  perpetual  turmoil.  The  history 
of  the  poor,  from  the  economic  breakdown  of  chattel  slavery 
to  the  general  establishment,  and  in  turn  the  general  decay, 
of  serfdom  has  not  been  adequately  written.  It  comprises,  we 
know,  one  long  succession  of  horrors.  The  idea  that  the  invaders 
brought  with  them  freedom  for  the  mass  of  the  toilers  is  quite 
illusory.  The  lando\vTiers  of  the  dark  ages,  notwithstanding 
the  partial  adoption  of  the  methods  of  the  village  conmiunities, 
were  quite  as  brutal  in  their  treatment  of  the  subjugated 
peoples  as  were  the  slave-owners  of  old  time. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FEUDAL  ORIGINS 

The  feudal  system  on  the  continent  of  Europe  thus  arose  out  of 
the  anarchy  of  endless  and  ruthless  invasions,  the  break-up  of  aU 
law  and  order,  the  growth  of  bands  of  brigands  who  roamed  the 
country  in  search  of  plunder,  and  the  consequent  insecurity  of 
workers  of  every  kind.  In  considering  the  terrible  drawbacks 
of  feudalism  and  the  miserable  condition  of  the  serfs  and  villeins 
on  many  of  the  feudal  estates,  we  are  apt  to  forget  or  to  minimise 
the  state  of  affairs  which  preceded  its  foundation  and  organisa- 
tion. Over  the  greater  part  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  decay 
there  was  no  permanent  security  for  life  and  property.  In- 
habitants of  country  and  to^vn  were  always  in  danger  of  slaughter, 
rapine,  incendiarism  and  outrage  of  every  kind.  There  was  no 
limit  to  the  horrors  which  might  befall  them.  Cultivators  of  the 
soil  were  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  hordes  of  barbarians  and  semi- 
civilised  savages  from  without,  as  well  as  the  less  recorded  but 
still  more  dreadful  bands  of  freebooters  from  within. 

They  naturally  looked  round,  therefore,  to  obtain  protection 
of  some  sort.  Neither  the  peasant  himself  nor  his  family  was 
trained  to  military  sefvice  or  in  a  position  to  resist  either  foreign 
or  domestic  ruffians.  His  neighbours  were  as  little  qualified  to 
hold  their  own  as  his  own  people.  They  were  all,  in  fact,  power- 
less, and  there  was  no  institution  in  existence  which  they  could 
call  in  to  their  aid.  Consequently  leaders  accustomed  to  war 
and  devoted  to  miUtary  service,  who  gathered  around  them 
groups  of  fighting  men,  bound  to  them  by  success  in  the  field  or 
by  remunerative  plunder,  when  they  established  themselves  in 
rough  fortresses,  castles  or  block-houses,  were  able  to  give  the 
workers  of  all  kinds  assurance  of  some  sort  of  security.  Even 
the  worst  forms  of  personal  military  domination  arranged  be- 
tween the  fighting  lords,  with  their  vassals  and  their  villeins, 
seemed  preferable  to  the  unlimited  possibilities  of  perpetual 
outrage  which  were  constantly  threatening  those  who  had  no 

178 


FEUDAL  ORIGINS  179 

such  protection.  Contracts  of  work,  service  and  subservience, 
though  including  certain  rights  which  seem  to  us  sensual  and 
cruel  in  a  very  high  degree,  were  superior  to  the  anarchy  which 
previously  prevailed.  Even  the  right  of  the  first  night  and  the 
manchette,  which  in  succeeding  ages  were  so  bitterly  and  right- 
fully resented,  appear  less  horrible  when  we  put  ourselves  back 
in  imagination  into  the  period  that  occasioned  such  inhuman 
arrangements,  and  accorded  to  a  brutal  and  ignorant  minority 
a  supremacy  in  which  the  more  or  less  cultured  ecclesiastics 
cheerfully  participated. 

It  was  in  its  inception,  and  for  long  afterwards,  a  monstrous 
social  system,  Uttle,  if  at  all,  in  advance  of  the  chattel  slavery 
which  it  replaced.  But  out  of  it  a  milder  and  more  civilised 
constitution  might  and  did  grow.  The  horrors  of  feudal  over- 
lordship,  with  its  chivalry,  were  to  the  full  as  great  in  many  ways 
as  those  of  the  large  land  and  slave  owners  who  were  their  pre- 
decessors. It  was  not  from  the  good  and  romantic  side  of  feudal 
domination  that  the  further  changes  came.  Nor,  as  later  events 
clearly  demonstrated,  was  it  possible  for  these  transformations 
to  be  brought  about  suddenly.  As  with  Roman  slavery  and 
the  Roman  drain  of  wealth  without  retm-n  from  the  provinces, 
the  economic  and  social  causes  below  affected  the  permanence 
of  the  whole  structure.  When  the  basis  was  shaken  the  society 
as  a  whole  was  modified.  The  overthrow  of  the  old,  and  the 
constitution  of  the  new  development  arose  from  this  modifica- 
tion. Force  by  itself  could  not,  and  did  not  bring  about 
thorough  transformation  in  any  country,  until,  owing  to  economic 
circumstances,  which  were  not  necessarily  crucial  changes  in  the 
fonns  of  production  themselves,  a  fresh  class  had  gradually 
grown  up.  This  class  was  by  degrees  capable  of  defending  itseK 
and  its  slowly  acquired  social  position  against  the  worn-out  in- 
stitutions of  the  old  supremacy.  Premature  attempts  from  the 
top  to  anticipate  the  course  of  evolution  proved  completely 
futile. 

The  natural  inclination  of  historians  of  the  individualist 
school  to  exalt  unduly  the  power  o^  great  men  induced  even 
Gibbon  to  attach  too  much  importance  to  the  career  of  Charle- 
magne. A  great  man  may  help  to  hasten  somewhat  the  pace 
of  the  current  of  liis  period  ;  he  may  even  arrest  anarchy  for  a 
time  and  bring  temporary  order  out  of  chaos.    But  that,  in  days 


180  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

of  overturn  and  conflict,  any  men  or  set  of  men  can  permanently 
advance  or  seriously  check  the  general  tendency  is  proved  to  be 
an  illusion  by  all  the  teachings  of  history.  This  is  true  when 
there  are  no  unforeseen  external  events  to  complicate  and  con- 
fuse the  situation.  But  when  to  internal  disorder  is  superadded 
anarchy  engineered  from  without,  not  the  ablest  brain  that  ever 
functioned  can  achieve  his  purpose,  or  establish  a  continuous 
policy.  Charlemagne  tried  to  reorganise  the  separate  and  dis- 
orderly territories  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  West  into  some- 
thing approaching  a  cohesive  and  legally  constituted  power. 
He  was  partially  successful  during  his  lifetime,  and  he  has  on 
that  account  been  universally  acclaimed  as  a  wise  and  foreseeing 
ruler.  But  how  little  of  his  influence  was  lasting,  and  to  how 
small  a  degree  the  mass  of  the  people  in  his  dominions  benefited 
by  his  wide  Imperialist  statesmanship,  is  apparent  from  what 
followed  immediately  upon  his  death. 

All  the  elemental  forces  of  social  and  industrial  chaos  broke 
out  with  more  persistence  than  before.  The  tyranny  and 
cruelty  of  the  majority  of  the  lords  towards  their  dependents 
remained  unchecked.  Internecine  conflicts  between  members 
of  the  royal  house  were  faithfully  reproduced  among  the  nobles. 
All  efficient  combination  against  the  inroads  of  pirates,  swash- 
bucklers, Moslems  and  barbarian  hordes  was  thus  rendered  im- 
possible. Normans,  Arabs  and  Huns  still  continued  their  raids 
and  devastations  throughout  the  West.  The  Normans  in  France 
and  Germany  were  for  some  time  the  most  formidable  of  the 
three  sets  of  invaders.  They  ravaged,  butchered  and  pillaged 
all  up  the  Rhine  and  its  surrounding  districts ;  burning  the  small 
towns  and  villages  on  the  way,  and  collecting  considerable  booty 
from  the  abbeys,  monasteries,  convents  and  castles  which  they 
sacked.  Semi-organised  feudalism  had  no  forces  capable  of 
resisting  these  ruthless  tribes.  Rushing  down  with  their  fleet 
of  rovers  from  the  North,  these  sea- wolves  at  the  same  date  went 
up  the  Seine,  carrying  on  the  like  programme  of  seemingly  pur- 
poseless slaughter  and  rapine.  Having  looted  the  outlying 
towns  and  chateaux  as  they  did  in  Germany,  they  then  took 
and  plundered  Paris.  These  became  familiar  exploits.  The 
nimibers  of  these  Scandinavian  pirates  were  comparatively 
small,  but  their  courage  and  ferocity  were  great. 

What,  however,  gave  special  significance  to  these  and  many 


FEUDAL  ORIGINS  181 

other  successful  expeditions  was  that  frequently  the  common 
folk  in  the  invaded  districts,  furiously  embittered  against  their 
own  domestic  enemies,  the  Frankish  knights,  who  had  formed 
part  of  the  previous  wave  of  exterminators  and  settlers,  and  the 
ecclesiastical  oppressors  who  shared  the  plunder,  made  common 
cause  with  the  Norman  freebooters,  taking  advantage  of  the 
opportunity  to  avenge  themselves  terribly  upon  their  perse- 
cutors. The  cutting  off  of  hands  and  feet,  the  disembowelling, 
burning  alive  and  long  drawn-out  torturings,  familiarly  prac- 
tised by  the  high-born  aristocracy  of  expropriation  and  plunder 
upon  their  serfs  and  villeins,  were  inflicted  upon  them  in  turn 
by  these  same  serfs  and  villeins,  who  gladly  welcomed  Normans 
as  friends  and  allies.  Rough  justice  was  thus  administered  in 
France,  Germany  and  elsewhere ;  just  as  Roman  slaves  had 
sometimes  taken  the  like  revenge  upon  their  masters  when, 
with  the  barbarian  invasions,  their  chance  came. 

History  and  tradition  tell  of  many  instances  when,  under 
Charlemagne's  feeble  successors  and  later  on,  the  peasantry, 
who  saw  no  hope  of  relief  from  the  life  of  toil  and  misery  to  which 
they  were  doomed,  gave  aid  and  information  which  enabled  the 
raiders  to  capture  towns  and  fortresses  that  might  otherwise 
have  successfully  resisted  attack.  But  these  private  slaughter- 
ings on  the  one  side,  to  avenge  terrible  wrongs  on  the  other,  had 
no  direct  influence  in  bettering  the  condition  of  serfs  and  villeins. 
For  the  new  invaders  in  France  soon  ceased  to  be  mere  invaders  ; 
they  intermarried  into  the  highest  Frankish  families,  from  the 
royal  caste  downwards,  and  became  permanent  exploiters  and 
oppressors  like  the  feudal  magnates  with  whom  they  had  allied 
themselves.  They  thus  joined  forces  against  the  common  people 
with  their  predecessors  ;  and  found  no  difficulty  m  embracing  the 
Christian  religion,  which  in  these  matters  of  class  domination 
always  proved  very  adaptable. 

The  Catholic  Church,  which  has  quite  unwarrantably  taken  to 
itself  great  credit  for  ameliorating  the  lot  of  the  peasants,  as  it  did 
for  emancipating  the  chattel  slaves  on  equally  invalid  grounds, 
was  one  of  the  largest  and  most  extravagant  of  landowners. 
The  condition  of  the  serfs  and  villeins  on  the  estates  of  the 
princes  of  the  Church  was  just  as  bad  as  it  was  on  those  of  the 
nobles.  Their  possessions  were  enormous,  as  was  clearly  discerned 
at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution.    The  properties  belonging 


182  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

to  the  Bishopric  of  Paris  in  the  tenth  century  were  carefully 
catalogued  by  the  official  scribe  of  that  time.  They  exceed  in 
value  and  extent  the  vast  possessions  of  the  great  Roman 
miUionaire,  Atticus,  and  his  wealth  in  money,  land  and  slaves 
was  spread  over  a  much  wider  area.  Estates,  townships  and 
villages  in  all  the  departments  of  France  brought  in  great  re- 
venues. They  extended  over  the  best  land  in  the  country,  with 
more  than  twenty  thousand  serfs.  The  great  ecclesiastical 
potentate,  who  retained  a  large  proportion  of  the  wealth  for  his 
own  use,  lorded  it  over  his  lay  peers  with  an  amount  of  arro- 
gance never  exhibited  by  the  proudest  priests  of  paganism. 
When  one  of  these  bishops  was  to  be  newly  enthroned,  the  King 
of  France,  Charles  le  Sot,  with  the  help  of  the  greatest  of  his 
nobility,  carried  the  golden  litter  that  bore  him  from  his  palace 
right  into  the  cathedral.  But  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
serfs  who  provided  this  rich  representative  of  the  carpenter's 
Son  with  the  enormous  income  he  personally  derived  from  his 
estates  were  no  whit  better  off  than  the  same  class  who  toiled 
on  the  lands  of  the  nobles  of  the  day.  It  took  more  than  eight 
hundred  years  to  relieve  the  French  people  even  partially  from 
this  intolerable  usurpation  of  the  Church,  when  the  lands  of 
bishops  and  feudal  lords  were  dealt  with  together. 

So  slowly  did  events  move  in  that  long  and  mournful  pro- 
cession of  misery  for  the  mass  of  the  toilers.  For  century  after 
century  Europe  was  exposed  to  a  protracted  siege  from  north 
and  south  and  east  and  west.  No  sooner  had  one  set  of 
marauders  been  repelled,  or  allowed  to  settle  down,  than  another 
equally  ferocious  horde  took  up  the  tale  of  rapine  and  slaughter. 
And,  as  if  there  were  not  enough  to  do  at  home,  just  as  order 
was  beginning  to  develop  out  of  this  chaos  a  succession  of  boot- 
less crusades  for  the  Holy  Land,  in  which  lives  and  wealth  were 
thrown  away  to  no  good  purpose  whatsoever,  rendered  the  con- 
fusion worse  confounded.  Feudal  lords,  knights  and  retainers, 
who  might  have  been  of  some  use  on  their  estates  even  in  con- 
solidating their  rough  relations  with  their  own  dependents, 
involved  themselves  in  debt,  crushed  their  villeins  and  serfs  and 
such  townsfolk  as  they  could  conveniently  mishandle  by  their 
exactions,  and  went  off  to  the  wars  in  Palestine  and  Asia  Minor 
with  the  funds  thus  accumulated. 

The  wonder  is  that  mankind  in  the  West  ever  succeeded  in 


FEUDAL  ORIGINS  183 

pulling  itself  out  of  this  long  concatenation  of  calamities, 
rendered  more  unendurable  by  the  maniacal  bigotry  and 
bloody  superstitions  which  accompanied  them.  That  the  most 
oppressed  class  of  all  were  able  at  intervals  to  avenge  themselves 
locally,  even  without  the  aid  of  foreign  invaders,  is  certain. 
But  revenge  and  repression  alternately  contributed  little  or 
nothing  to  social  progress.  This  came  about  slowly,  almost 
unseen,  below  the  surface  of  these  anarchical  conflicts,  which, 
embittered  by  religious  fury,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Albigenses, 
Huguenots,  Lollards  and  others,  led  to  slaughter  of  the  most 
horrible  kind.  Clearly,  had  the  men-at-arms  who  were  guilty 
of  these  wholesale  atrocities — not  confined  to  the  orthodox  or 
Catholic  side — combined  to  attack  their  masters,  they  would 
speedily  have  gained  the  day  for  themselves.  But  would  this 
have  enabled  them  to  hasten  forward  their  economic  emancipa- 
tion and  establish  a  new  system  ?  The  answer  is  only  a  blank 
—No. 

It  was  not  by  accident  that  the  feudal  system,  with  its  com- 
plicated personal  arrangements,  lasted  more  than  twice  as  long 
as  the  Roman  Empire.  The  local  usages  and  customs,  which 
accorded  to  the  lords  rights  of  justice  and  almost  absolute  power 
within  the  limits  of  their  fiefs,  were  opposed  by  the  central 
authority,  or  so  much  as  remained  of  it,  in  every  part  of  Europe. 
But  local  necessities  proved  stronger  than  centralised  sover- 
eignty. Feudal  overlordship  above  and  villeinage  and  serfdom 
below  endured  for  many  centuries,  because,  with  all  the  cruelty 
and  horror  that  accompanied  them,  there  was  no  institution  then 
available  which  could  take  their  place.  The  king  or  emperor  not 
infrequently  favoured  the  growing  power  of  the  bourgeoisie  in 
its  early  days  as  a  means  of  holding  his  own  against  the  greater 
established  power  of  his  nobles.  But  when  independent  or 
allied  cities  became  rich,  and  capable  of  asserting  their  municipal 
freedom,  both  the  king  and  the  nobility  were  ready  enough  to 
make  common  cause  against  them.  And  all  the  upper  strata 
of  society,  outside  the  successful  repubUcs  of  Italy  and  some  of 
the  German  mercantile  cities,  considered  the  villeins  and  serfs 
and  citizens  of  lower  grade  Uttle  better  than  hirnian  cattle,  as 
their  forbears  the  slaves  were  considered  before  them.  The 
very  small  minority  of  the  lords  who  behaved  well  to  the  people 
on  their  estates  could  not  counterbalance  the  short-sighted 


184  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

majority  who  so  often  plundered  their  peasantry  that  the  latter 
ceased  to  be  able  to  provide  their  masters  with  the  wealth  which 
they  claimed.  Moreover,  many  of  these  nobles  were  themselves 
no  better  than  robbers  and  thieves,  who  used  their  fortified 
castles  as  centres  where  they  could  gather  together  trained 
ruffians  to  attack  their  neighbours,  to  strip  travellers  and  to 
oppress  the  peasantry  who  might  have  looked  to  them  for  pro- 
tection. This  state  of  things  was  at  periods  quite  common  in 
France  and  over  the  greater  part  of  Germany.  When,  however, 
peace  prevailed,  except  for  a  comparatively  short  time,  the  un- 
disturbed agricultural  population  soon  restored  the  prosperity 
of  the  pacified  region.  Nor  did  the  sporadic  risings  of  the 
peasantry  against  local  oppression  interfere  with  this  satis- 
factory growth,  where  moderate  security  reigned.  The  descrip- 
tion by  Froissart  of  the  country  round  the  Mame,  shortly 
before  the  great  outbreak  of  the  Jacquerie,  shows  that  the 
district  was  in  a  flourishing  condition,  in  spite  of  the  many 
troubles  which  France  was  passing  through  prior  to  the  rising. 

The  country  of  the  Albigenses  also,  at  the  time  when  it  was  at- 
tacked, plundered  and  devastated  and  the  population  massacred 
by  Catholic  bigots,  was  a  flourishing  district.  Other  regions 
which  escaped  for  a  time  from  the  horrors  of  war  and  the  rapine 
of  peace  had  their  periods  of  prosperity ;  for  there  is  nothing 
more  remarkable  than  the  manner  in  which  the  French  peasantry 
throughout  their  history  have  set  to  work,  whenever  the  oppor- 
tunity offered,  to  repair  damage  done  from  without  or  from 
within  by  increasing  industry  and  persistent  thrift.  Nor  were 
the  peasantry  of  other  parts  of  Europe  who  had  fair  play  much 
behind  their  French  compeers  in  the  assiduous  cultivation  of 
their  soil,  and  their  endeavours  to  make  good  the  desolation 
wrought.  But  the  mere  peace  and  common  justice  which  they 
needed  to  ensure  their  well-being  were  precisely  what  they 
could  not  get,  in  those  or  in  later  times. 


CHAPTER  X\ail 

THE  JACQUERIE  AND  THE  PARIS  RISING 

Throughout  the  long  domination  of  the  feudal  system  in 
France  local  spasmodic  revolts  by  the  serfs  and  villeins  against 
the  nobles  who  oppressed  them  were  frequent.  But  these  up- 
heavals were  rarely  successful,  even  for  a  very  short  time ;  and 
accurate  records  of  what  occurred  are  not  obtainable.  Only 
when  the  insurgents  received  organised  help  from  without,  or 
aided  invaders  in  their  raids,  were  they  able  to  enjoy  the  tem- 
porary luxury  of  revenge  upon  the  lords  and  ecclesiastics  who 
held  them  in  thraldom.  There  is  nothing  in  the  known  out- 
burst of  the  "  Jacques  " — so  called  from  the  nickname  of  Jacques 
Bonhomme — in  different  parts  of  France  which  can  compare 
for  a  moment,  for  vigour,  duration  and  success,  with  the  great 
risings  of  the  chattel  slaves  in  Italy  and  Sicily  under  the  Roman 
Republic,  or  even  with  the  revolt  of  the  Bagaudae  in  Gaul  in  the 
reign  of  Diocletian.  At  no  time  was  there,  so  far  as  history  can 
tell  us,  any  serious  danger  of  a  general  overthrow ;  and  such 
small  victories  as  the  Jacques  achieved  during  their  chief  rising, 
which  occurred  within  circuit  of  a  hundred  miles  of  Paris,  were 
gained  only  when,  as  at  Senlis,  the  townsfolk,  being  attacked  by 
the  nobles,  took  part  with  the  Jacques,  or  when  they  received 
valuable  support  from  the  conmiune  and  citizens  of  Paris. 

The  upheaval  known  by  the  name  of  the  Jacquerie  took  place 
in  1358.  It  was  due,  not  to  the  usual  misrule  or  tyranny  of  the 
feudal  nobility  and  chivalry,  but  to  causes  which  could  scarcely 
fail  to  bring  about  more  than  ordinary  domestic  trouble,  if  the 
agricultural  population  had  any  fight  left  in  them  at  all.  After 
the  disastrous  defeat  of  the  French  king,  John,  and  his  army 
by  conglomerate  English  forces  under  the  command  of  the 
Black  Prince  at  Poitiers  a  cessation  of  hostilities  was  arranged, 
and  the  French  forces  were  disbanded.  During  the  battle  the 
French  nobles  and  knights  had  shown  arrant  cowardice,  and 
deserved  the  contempt  with  which  they  were  regarded  by  the 

185 


186  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

whole  French  nation.  But  the  pusillanimity  they  displayed  in 
the  field  was  followed  by  the  most  horrible  brigandage,  carried 
on  at  the  expense  of  the  peasantry  of  the  villages  and  small 
towns.  Pillage,  rape,  torture,  massacre  went  on  daily.  Such 
districts  as  could  pay  heavy  ransom  were  spared  for  the  time 
being,  but  in  the  long  run  whole  districts  were  systematically 
robbed  and  devastated  by  these  free  companies  of  rapine.  At 
last  the  serfs  and  villeins  turned  upon  their  ravagers  and  began 
a  war  of  reprisals,  in  the  course  of  which  many  castles  and 
chateaux  were  burnt  to  the  ground  by  the  infuriated  "  Jacques," 
who  wreaked  a  terrible  vengeance  upon  the  men,  women  and 
children  of  their  enemies  who  fell  into  their  hands.  Yet  they 
certainly  carried  out  nothing  worse,  upon  their  much  smaller 
scale,  than  the  brigands  and  their  allies,  the  feudal  chiefs  and 
the  king  himself  habitually  did  before  and  after  the  upheaval. 
The  turning-point  of  the  brief  struggle  was  at  the  town 
and  fortress  of  Meaux.  Here  a  number  of  the  nobility  had 
taken  refuge  with  their  wives,  to  escape  destruction  by  the 
maddened  peasants.  So  numerous  and  determined  were  the 
attacking  serfs  that  it  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  save  the  women 
of  the  aristocracy,  including  the  Duchess  of  Normandy  and 
others  of  high  rank,  from  the  fate  which  had  so  often  befallen 
the  peasant  women.  Suddenly,  by  the  purest  accident,  two 
great  French  knights,  Gaston  de  Foix  and  the  Captal  de  Buch, 
with  some  twenty-five  other  knights  and  their  attendants, 
appeared  on  the  scene,  and  forced  their  way  through  the  be- 
siegers into  the  armed  camp  where  the  women  were  collected. 
Immediately  thereafter  they  put  their  small  force  in  order, 
and  charging  at  their  head  in  full  armour,  against  which  the 
miserable  weapons  of  the  serfs  could  inflict  no  wound,  they 
routed  the  three  thousand  assailants  and,  according  to  the  narra- 
tive of  the  time,  butchered  no  fewer  than  two  thousand  of  them 
on  the  spot  and  in  the  chase  that  followed.  Here  the  highest 
minds  in  the  dominant  class  were  as  furiously  vindictive  and 
ruthless  as  the  greatest  personages  of  the  Roman  Republic 
dealing  with  revolting  slaves.  The  Captal  de  Buch  and  the 
Comte  Gaston  de  Foix,  like  Edward  the  Black  Prince,  du 
GuescUn,  Bayard  and  others,  were  brave,  generous  and  merciful 
when  fighting  men  of  their  own  rank.  But  when  it  came  to 
meeting  the  serfs  and  villeins  of  France  they  were  capable  of 


THE  JACQUERIE  AND  THE  PARIS  RISING  187 

any  infamy.  These  unfortunate  peasants  were  to  them  of  no 
account  whatever,  save  to  till  the  soil  and  submit  to  all  sorts 
of  personal  and  pecuniary  exactions ;  for  the  peasant  (like  the 
chattel  slaves  before  the  Emperors  introduced  some  laws  to  his 
advantage)  was  barely  treated  as  a  man.  Thus,  in  the  day  of 
victory  over  the  insurgents  no  mercy  was  shown.  The  knights 
and  nobles  forgot,  in  their  hatred  and  the  memory  of  their  previ- 
ous terror,  that  it  was  to  the  economic  interest  of  their  class  at 
least  to  keep  the  toilers  alive,  and  to  save  the  small  towns  and 
villages  from  fire  and  flames.  But  so  great  had  been  the  panic 
that  no  such  considerations  weighed  with  them  for  a  moment. 
Revenge,  destruction  and  slaughter  were  allowed  free  play. 
In  one  district  alone  as  many  as  twenty  thousand  unarmed 
peasants  were  butchered.  After  the  disaster  to  the  nobles 
at  Senhs — where  the  army  of  the  feudal  lords,  imagining  that 
a  mere  parade  march  lay  before  them,  entered  the  town  in  full 
confidence  and  were  cut  off  by  the  peasantry — the  fury  of  the 
rest  of  the  nobihty  knew  no  bounds.  Devastation  and  horror 
reigned  supreme. 

Treachery  was  brought  in  as  usual,  when,  the  peasants  being 
the  stronger  party,  that  form  of  upper-class  diplomacy  seemed 
more  advisable  than  mere  brute  force.  Thus  the  King,  Charles 
the  Bad,  when  he  found  himself  opposed  to  some  three  thousand 
peasants  under  the  leadership  of  GuiUaume  le  Cale,  who  showed 
generalship  in  arraying  his  half-armed  followers  for  battle,  in- 
vited le  Cale  to  a  peaceful  conference  in  order  to  come  to  terms. 
No  sooner  had  the  peasant  commander  accepted  this  invitation, 
in  good  faith  but  with  exceeding  foolishness,  than  the  King,  of 
course,  put  him  at  once  in  irons,  attacked  and  defeated  the 
army  deprived  of  its  leader,  whom  immediately  thereafter  he 
brutally  executed.  Before  this  encounter  there  were  not  a  few 
who  imagined  that  the  King  himself  was  disposed  to  take  the 
side  of  the  peasants,  and  thus  strengthen  the  power  of 
the  throne.  But  this  was  as  complete  an  hallucination  as  the 
notion  to  which  GuiUaume  le  Cale  and  others  fell  victims  :  that 
a  governing  class  ever  keeps  faith  when  its  rights  of  property 
and  social  predominance  seem  in  jeopardy.  The  King  saw  quite 
clearly  that,  however  much  he  might  desire  to  curb  the  arrogance 
and  reduce  the  influence  of  the  great  feudal  lords  in  the  interest 
of  the  Crown  and  State,  his  vital  interests,  against  the  serfs  and 


188  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

peasants  of  the  country-side,  as  well  as  against  the  growing  power 
of  the  municipalities  and  their  trade  combinations,  were  closely 
bound  up  with  theirs.  Even  if  he  and  his  successors  had  been 
genuinely  favourable  to  the  people  they  could  not  afford  to  dis- 
pense with  the  support  of  the  feudal  chiefs,  or  force  them  all 
into  one  camp  against  their  superior  by  attempting  to  sap  the 
foundations  of  the  whole  system.  The  time  was  far  from  ripe 
for  such  a  policy ;  nor  did  any  king  of  France  before  or  after 
the  fall  of  feudalism  frankly  adopt  it.  Henry  IV.,  who,  with 
his  "  every  peasant  his  fowl  in  the  pot,"  had  some  tendency  in 
that  direction,  and  was  a  far  stronger  monarch  in  every  way  than 
Charles  the  Bad,  could  not  go  further  than  words  in  expressing 
his  sympathy ;  while  his  inevitable  campaigns  told  heavily 
against  the  welfare  of  his  subjects. 

Large  as  this  particular  rising  of  the  peasants  looms  in  French 
history  under  its  name  of  "  the  "  Jacquerie,  the  whole  revolt, 
so  far  as  the  serfs  themselves  were  direct  parties  to  it,  lasted  no 
more  than  a  month.  It  was  the  fear  inspired,  rather  than  the 
success  achieved,  which  gave  the  upheaval  its  importance.  But 
a  movement  of  far  greater  significance  took  place  in  Paris  at  the 
same  time,  which  was  to  some  extent  associated  with  and  helpful 
to  the  Jacquerie.  This  was  the  uprising  of  the  citizens  of  Paris 
under  the  leadership  of  the  famous  Etienne  Marcel,  the  head  and 
provost  of  the  merchants  and  trades  of  that  city.  But  for  the 
aid  given  from  this  quarter,  it  is  probable  that  the  attempt  of 
the  Jacquerie  would  have  failed  even  sooner  than  it  did.  Marcel 
had  the  alliance  of  Robert  le  Coq  in  his  endeavour  to  rouse  the 
citizens  of  Paris  and  other  towns  against  the  Dauphin  Charles, 
who  had  fled  with  no  fewer  than  eight  hundred  lances  from  the 
rout  of  Poitiers,  displaying  on  that  occasion  almost  equal  pusil- 
lanimity with  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who,  with  a  powerful  force, 
never  took  any  part  in  the  battle  at  all.  The  entire  condition 
of  France  at  this  period  was  rendered  well-nigh  desperate,  not 
only  by  the  razzias  and  ravages  committed  by  the  companies 
of  men-at-arms,  frequently  headed  by  or  in  alliance  with  the 
nobles,  but  by  the  systematic  debasement  of  the  currency,  the 
terrible  exactions  demanded  to  pay  the  ransoms  to  the  English 
for  the  release  of  King  John  and  other  high-placed  prisoners  in 
their  hands,  the  insecurity  of  the  roads,  which  rendered  trade 
difficult  if  not  impossible,  and  the  lack  of  any  capable  central 


THE  JACQUERIE  AND  THE  PARIS  RISING  189 

authority.  Yet  bad  as  all  this  was,  the  conduct  of  the  citizens 
of  Paris  took  a  different  line  to  that  of  the  Jacquerie.  They 
and  their  envoys  attacked  and  burned  castles  infested  by 
brigands  and  freebooters,  and  had  no  hesitation  in  fighting 
against  nobles  who  resisted  them.  But  the  armed  forces  of 
Paris  were  rarely  if  ever  maddened  into  excesses  against  the 
defeated,  or  their  women  and  children. 

Etienne  Marcel  himself,  however,  committed  a  great  blunder 
— crimes  then  were  so  common  that  we  cannot  apply  the  ethic 
of  to-day  to  the  deeds  of  the  fourteenth  century.  He  made  the 
mistake  of  putting  to  death,  without  trial,  one  of  the  King's  legal 
representatives  in  the  Parliament;  while  his  slaughter  of  the 
marshals  of  Normandy  and  Champagne,  not  only  in  the  presence 
of  but  in  actual  touch  with  the  Dauphin,  was  worse  than  a  crime. 
"  Stone  dead  hath  no  fellow."  Yet  the  leader  of  the  people  in 
troubled  times  who  acts  upon  that  aphorism  plays  into  the 
hands  of  his  rivals  and  enemies,  and  renders  any  accommoda- 
tion with  the  ruler  whose  counsellors  have  been  sacrificed  im- 
possible, when  circumstances  give  him  in  turn  the  ascendancy. 
This  removal  of  the  marshal  by  Marcel's  followers  in  the  royal 
presence,  even  if  it  had  been  justified,  in  view  of  the  marshal's 
own  treachery  to  the  people,  furnished  an  excuse  for  similar 
action  at  Marcel's  expense  when  he,  being  unable  to  control  the 
Dauphin  and  the  opposing  party  of  citizens  in  Paris,  intrigued 
with  the  King  of  Navarre  and  was  ready  to  hand  over  Paris  to 
that  prince. 

But  whatever  his  mistakes  may  have  been  in  practice,  the 
policy  of  Marcel  and  his  coadjutor,  the  Bishop  of  Laon,  was  very 
different  from  the  anarchical  effort  of  the  serfs  and  peasants, 
who  merely  sought  to  avenge  their  wrongs  upon  the  nobles 
without  having  any  clear  idea  of  what  they  would  do  next. 
Marcel  and  Robert  le  Coq  had  for  their  part  quite  definite  objects 
in  view — objects  so  admirable  in  themselves  and  so  beneficial 
to  France,  if  they  could  by  any  means  have  been  attained, 
that  even  in  the  twentieth  century  they  have  not  as  yet 
reached  their  fulfilment.  A  brief  smnmary  of  M.  Simeon  de 
Luce,  from  the  Charters  promulgated  at  the  time,  seems  to 
put  Marcel  and  his  friends  on  a  very  high  plane,  in  com- 
pany with  the  greatest  men  who,  being  unfortunately  in 
advance  of  their  time,  tried  to  accommodate  their  ideas  and 


190  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

principles  to  the  practical  possibilities  of  the  epoch  in  which 
they  lived. 

First  and  foremost  Marcel  intended  to  cut  at  the  root  of  the 
abuses  of  royal  despotic  authority  by  enforcing  the  recognition 
of  the  self-government  of  the  communes  of  France  combined  in 
a  federation  after  the  model  of  the  good  towns  of  Flanders,  and 
having  at  their  head  the  Commune  of  Paris,  safeguarding  only 
the  high  political  suzerainty  of  the  King.  Private  wars  between 
nobles  forbidden ;  payment  and  equipment  of  the  army  and, 
more  important  still,  the  power  to  carry  on  or  to  suspend  war 
decided  by  arbitration  of  the  States  ;  dominial  concessions  made 
since  the  reign  of  PhiUp  le  Bel  revoked  ;  the  safety  of  all  subjects 
ensured  against  the  abuse  of  judgments  by  commission  ;  trade 
freed  from  unfair  and  ruinous  competition  by  restraining  magis- 
trates from  carrying  on  business  ;  the  receipt  of  supplies  voted 
removed  from  the  hidden  accountancy  of  the  agents  of  the 
treasury  and  placed  under  the  control  of  public  functionaries 
elected  by  the  States,  audited  also  by  delegates  nominated  by 
that  body ;  royalty  prohibited  from  debasing  the  coinage  ; 
lastly,  the  government,  while  the  assemblies  were  not  sitting,  to 
be  entrusted  to  the  King,  aided  by  thirty-four  members  of  the 
Council  of  the  States,  seventeen  from  the  Tiers  Etat  (bourgeoisie), 
eleven  from  the  clergy,  and  six  from  the  nobility. 

This  series  of  thoroughly  statesmanlike  measures  was  carried 
in  1356-1357,  and  accepted  by  the  Dauphin  and  his  nobility, 
enfeebled  as  they  were  by  the  crushing  defeat  of  Poitiers.  But 
we  have  only  to  look  at  the  terms  imposed  upon  the  Dauphin 
and  the  Regent,  and  consider  how  the  economic  and  social  de- 
velopment of  France  then  stood,  to  see  that  no  heir  to  the  throne 
would  submit  to  the  surveillance  of  thirty-four  delegates  of  the 
etats-generaux  one  moment  longer  than  he  need.  The  murder 
of  his  adherents  at  the  instance  of  Marcel  and  the  proclamation 
by  Marcel's  allies,  Robert  le  Coq  and  Jean  de  Pacquigny,  of 
Charles  the  Bad  of  Navarre  as  King  of  France  complicated  the 
situation  still  further.  Moreover,  the  dominant  position  given 
to  the  Tiers  Etat  in  the  Council  of  thirty-four  (from  which,  of 
course,  the  peasantry  were  entirely  excluded)  is  conclusive 
evidence  that  neither  Marcel  nor  le  Coq  understood  that  the 
middle  or  trading  class  had  by  no  means  risen  to  the  level  of 
influence  which  entitled  them  to  such  representation.    They  felt 


THE  JACQUERIE  AND  THE  PARIS  RISING  191 

the  need  of  support,  and  looked  to  the  rising  power  of  the  bour- 
geoisie to  maintain  them  in  their  control  of  the  Dauphin.  Yet 
a  hundred  years  later  Louis  XI.,  with  all  his  supreme  statecraft 
and  unscrupulous  polity,  found  his  capacity  strained  to  the 
utmost  in  his  endeavour  to  play  a  similar  game  under  far  more 
favourable  conditions.  Meanwhile  Marcel's  co-operation  with 
the  Jacquerie,  and  the  high  tone  adopted  by  the  Commune  of 
Paris  in  the  provinces,  turned  a  large  portion  of  the  population 
around  the  metropolis  against  him  :  an  antagonism  which  has 
been  strongly  exhibited  even  in  our  own  day.  Thus  the  collapse 
of  the  Jacquerie,  the  impossibility  of  keeping  the  Dauphin  under 
his  control,  the  growth  of  the  party  of  opposition  among  the 
citizens  of  Paris  themselves,  induced  Marcel  to  enter  into  his 
fatal  intrigue  with  Charles  the  Bad  by  which  he  was  to  have 
given  the  keys  of  the  city  to  that  prince  in  return — as  the 
provost  expected — for  his  installing  Marcel  as  virtual  Mayor 
of  the  Palace  and  the  real  master  of  France.  The  result  was 
to  embolden  his  chief  enemy  in  Paris,  John  Maillart,  to  make  a 
sudden  attack  upon  him  just  as  the  plot  was  on  the  point  of 
being  carried  out.  Marcel  was  killed  by  John  Maillart  on  the 
spot,  and  his  followers  and  friends  were  tortured  to  death  with 
every  refinement  of  cruelty. 

Thus  the  Jacquerie  and  the  great  effort  of  the  first  Commune 
of  Paris  as  a  pohtical  entity  came  to  an  end  almost  simultane- 
ously. Greatly  as  we  must  admire  the  attempt  of  Marcel,  le 
Coq  and  their  coadjutors  to  bring  some  sort  of  democratic  and 
representative  order  out  of  the  social,  economic,  financial  and 
other  troubles  which  then  afflicted  so  large  a  part  of  France ; 
much  as  we  may  regret  the  fate  of  Guillaume  le  Cale  and  others 
who  tried  in  vain  to  discipline  the  peasantry  and  inspire  them 
with  some  sort  of  strategy  and  tactics ;  fully  also  as  we  can 
recognise  that  these  struggles  for  freedom,  though  futile,  helped 
forward  the  cause  of  emancipation  through  the  centuries  :  none 
the  less  the  whole  endeavour  which  then  so  speedily  collapsed 
came  to  its  sudden  end,  not  on  account  of  the  mistakes  made  or 
the  crimes  committed  by  leaders  or  followers,  but  by  the  truth, 
once  more  made  manifest,  that  the  stage  of  economic  and  social 
development  then  attained  did  not  permit  of  success.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  revolts  of  the  French  middle  class  or 
the   French  serfs  against  tyranny  and  misgovernment  were 


192  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

unjustifiable.  They  were  justifiable  on  every  ground  that  one  can 
urge  for  political  action  or  violent  upheaval  of  any  kind  :  never 
more  so  than  in  the  day  of  Etienne  Marcel  and  John  le  Coq. 
But  again  and  again  and  again  we  see,  in  the  cruel  and  protracted 
effort  of  mankind  to  get  free  from  its  own  self-imposed  but 
unconscious  domination  by  an  oppressive  minority,  that  ideals, 
justice,  truth,  morality  or  character  have  little  or  no  effect  on 
the  result  of  the  conflict.  Marcel  was  in  every  way  superior 
to  his  opponents  and  murderers.  The  cause  of  the  serfs  and 
peasants  was  light  against  darkness  as  compared  with  the  claims 
of  the  nobility  and  the  brigands — at  that  epoch  almost  con- 
vertible terms.  But  these  were  ineffective  incidents  in  the  long, 
grinding,  bitter  class  war  between  serfs  and  nobles,  traders  and 
king.  The  antagonism  was  more  relentless  in  France  than  in 
England,  because,  as  French  historians  have  often  pointed  out, 
at  the  time  of  the  battles  of  Crecy,  Poitiers  and  Agincourt  there 
were  in  France  no  such  great  bodies  of  free  yeomen  as  those 
who  fought  in  their  own  ranks,  side  by  side  with  the  English 
feudal  barons,  and  won  great  victories  for  the  overlords  of 
England.  But  even  if  there  had  been,  nothing  shows  that  the 
general  progress  could  have  been  more  rapid  under  the  economic 
and  social  conditions  then  existing. 

So  four  hundred  and  thirty-five  years  passed  away  in 
foreign  and  domestic  warfare,  and  frightful  misery  and  hardship 
for  the  French  people,  before  the  feudal  system  was  put  an  end 
to  by  law  and  a  portion  of  Marcel's  programme  for  the  Tiers 
Etat  was  realised. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND 

The  conquest  of  England  by  William  the  Norman,  and  the 
French  inheritances  of  the  Angevin  and  Plantagenet  kings 
involved  httle  less  than  the  ruin  of  a  large  part  of  France  for 
several  generations.  The  French  himiorous  claim  that  England 
is  "  a  French  colony  mal  iournS  "  is  all  very  well  as  a  jest  to-day, 
but  it  was  no  laughing  matter  for  France  then.  Invasion  after 
invasion,  war  after  war,  conducted  too  often,  when  the  invaders 
were  successful,  after  the  ruthless  fashion  of  the  immediate 
piratical  ancestors  of  the  King  and  robber  nobles  who  led  and 
commanded  the  English  armies,  proved  one  continual  curse  to 
the  unfortunate  inhabitants  of  the  disputed  territories.  That 
has  been  partially  shown  by  our  brief  survey  of  the  Jacquerie. 
But  the  English  wars  and  razzias  upon  French  provinces,  carried 
on  systematically  by  the  Plantagenet  monarchs,  were  httle 
better  in  their  results  than  the  wholesale  anarchy  which 
followed  upon  Poitiers.  Crecy  before  and  Agincourt  after- 
wards, the  frightful  maraudings  of  Edward  the  Black  Prince,  his 
massacres  at  Limoges  and  otherwhere,  as  well  as  the  terrible 
conquests  of  Henry  V.,  were  all  so  many  almost  irreparable 
disasters  for  France.  It  was,  in  the  long  run,  a  good  thing 
for  both  countries  that  the  new  spirit  breathed  into  the  French 
by  Joan  of  Arc  enabled  them  to  drive  the  Enghsh  across  the 
Channel. 

But  although  England  found  the  means  to  wage  these  wars  of 
aggression  for  her  foreign  rulers,  and  wasted  year  after  year  on 
these  bootless  enterprises  men  and  money  which  could  have 
been  far  better  employed  at  home,  it  is  nevertheless  the  fact 
that  the  Norman  Conquest  and  the  Norman  dominance,  nay, 
even  the  French  wars  themselves,  by  increasing  the  dependence 
of  her  kings  upon  the  money  of  her  burgesses  and  the  arms  of 
her  yeomen,  gave  England  the  opportunity  for  consohdating 
the  Uberties  of  her  purely  English  people  which  otherwise  might 

N  193 


194  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

have  been  delayed.  Her  dynasty  was  foreign  and  used  a 
strange  language  ;  the  more  important  lords  gradually  separated 
their  political  influence,  after  the  failure  of  the  great  French 
parliamentary  leader,  Simon  de  Montfort,  from  the  lower  knight- 
hood and  burgesses  of  London  and  the  provincial  towns  ;  the 
mass  of  the  people  began  to  feel  their  growing  strength  merely 
as  Englishmen,  who  inherited  a  bluff  good-fellowship  and  rough 
love  of  freedom  from  the  gentile  system  and  village  communities 
of  their  Anglo-Saxon  forbears.  On  the  battle-fields  of  France,  as 
in  the  fights  on  the  Scotch  and  Welsh  borders,  the  common  folk, 
trained  to  the  use  of  bow  and  arrow  and  other  arms,  showed 
the  feudal  magnates  and  their  retainers  that  they  were  the 
better  men ;  and  all  these  things,  coming  together,  had  developed 
in  England  a  body  of  burgesses  and  yeomen  who,  ashore  or  afloat, 
in  the  field  or  at  the  council  table,  rarely  met  their  match. 

But  this  independence,  self-confidence  and  rough  domestic 
vigour  were  based,  as  foreign  observers  were  quick  to  note, 
upon  the  material  well-being  of  the  upper  grades  of  the  common 
people.  It  was  their  economic  and  social  position  which  made 
them  resolute  sticklers  for  their  rights  in  peace  and  such  very 
ugly  customers  in  war.  They  had  gained  solidly  in  political 
influence  as  well  as  in  rude  personal  comfort  during  the  French 
wars.  From  the  time  of  collective  assertions  and  individual 
development  under  Henry  I.  to  the  confirmation  of  all  the 
freemen  had  won  in  the  Great  Charter  under  John,  and  thence 
onwards  through  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  the 
manorial  system,  which  constituted  the  basis  of  English  feudal- 
ism, had  gradually  given  way  before  the  resistance  of  a  large 
minority  of  the  freemen  at  the  top  and  the  villeins  at  the 
bottom.  Yet  there  were  plenty  of  these  latter  to  be  fully 
emancipated  from  attachment  to  the  soil  and  subservience  to 
the  lord,  especially  in  regard  to  the  right  of  marriage.  More- 
over, the  growth  of  free  labourers  out  of  this  very  section  of  the 
peasantry  had  grown  into  a  revolutionary  factor  in  the  coming 
social  development.  Under  the  newer  methods  of  farming 
there  was  plenty  of  room  for  the  labourers,  who  earned  their 
chief  support  by  hiring  themselves  out  to  the  larger  peasant 
farmers  now  cultivating  portions  of  the  special  manorial 
demesne  on  lease.  This  process  of  emancipation  and  social 
improvement  was  going  on  all  the  time  in  spite  of  the  disasters 


THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND     195 

across  the  Channel,  which  were  bringing  English  rule  in  France 
to  an  end,  while  at  the  same  time  the  home  trade  and  foreign 
commerce  of  the  towns  was  making  way.  The  rights  of  the 
Lord  of  the  Manor,  in  fact,  were  being  slowly  sapped ;  and  the 
duties  which  the  serfs  had  to  fulfil  in  tilling  on  his  behalf  were 
replaced  by  the  very  different  relations  between  landlord  and 
tenant  farmer.  At  the  same  time  the  needs  of  the  nobility  and 
chivalry  constantly  tended  to  change  the  other  labour  demands 
for  money  payments. 

It  is  clear  that  prior  to  the  plague  of  the  Black  Death,  whose 
ravages,  terrible  as  they  were,  seem  to  have  been  exaggerated, 
the  whole  of  the  Middle  Age  arrangements  were  undergoing  a 
cinicial  transfonnation.  The  serfs  and  villeins  were  not  only 
being  relieved  by  their  masters,  but  were  relieving  themselves 
from  onerous  personal  obligations  by  conscious  revolt,  and  at 
times  by  threatening  combinations  against  authorities  who  might 
endeavour  to  enforce  the  continuance  of  the  old  conditions  of 
personal  servitude.  The  enormous  loss  of  life  by  the  Black 
Death  strengthened  the  position  of  the  free  labourers  who  were 
left,  and  enabled  them  to  demand  payment  far  in  excess  of 
what  they  could  command  before.  But  as  prices  of  food,  owing 
to  scarcity,  had  risen  at  the  same  time,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  increase  of  wages  relatively  bettered  the  condition  of  those 
toilers  who  were  chiefly,  still  less  those  who  were  exclusively, 
dependent  upon  money  payments  in  return  for  work  done. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  for  the  next  thirty  years 
after  the  outburst  of  the  plague  in  1348  a  great  effort  was  made 
by  the  landowning  classes  to  set  back  the  movement  of  social 
and  economic  emancipation  going  on  below.  There  were 
plenty  of  genuine  poor  at  this  period  to  justify  the  furious 
denunciation  of  John  Ball  and  his  fellow  hedge-priests,  as  well 
as  the  scathing  satire  of  Piers  Plowman.  No  worse  moment 
could  have  been  chosen  to  enter  upon  a  reactionary  and  unjust 
poUcy.  No  time  could  have  been  more  favourable  to  the  revolt 
of  an  awakened  people.  And  of  all  the  measures  calculated  to 
combine  the  whole  country  against  not  only  King  and  nobles, 
but  Parliament  itself,  with  its  repressive  statutes,  a  poU  tax, 
falling  upon  the  poor  with  far  greater  weight  and  severity  than 
upon  the  well-to-do,  was  the  one  financial  enactment  certain  to 
produce  this  result. 


196  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

The  whole  country  was  well  prepared  for  the  rishig  which 
followed.  A  systematic  agitation,  so  far  as  was  possible  in 
those  days,  had  been  carried  on  againstjthe  dominant  class  for 
years  beforehand.  The  ownership  of  land  and  the  ostentation 
of  wealth  of  all  kinds  were  denounced  with  apostolic  enthusiasm 
combined  with  rough  popular  rhymes  and  plirases  and  not  a 
little  blunt  and  telling  English  humour.  All  the  vigour, 
courage  and  sense  of  fair  play  which  then  animated  Englishmen 
were  thus  concentrated  in  one  great  effort  against  their  rulers. 
The  rising  of  1381,  known  as  the  Peasants'  War,  was  manned 
by  a  very  different  set  of  people  from  those  who  constituted 
the  French  Jacquerie.  Many  of  the  peasants  and  yeomen  had 
fought  in  the  French  wars,  and  though  their  forces  were  not  well 
armed  as  a  whole,  there  were  enough  among  them  in  possession 
of  good  weapons  to  inspire  confidence  in  the  rest. 

The  history  of  the  upheaval  is  so  well  known,  as  far  as  the 
imperfect  records  of  the  time  admit,  and  its  significance  has 
been  so  fully  set  out  and  commented  upon  from  different  points 
of  view  that  any  detailed  account  would  be  out  of  place.  But 
the  attention  of  historians  of  all  schools  has  been  almost 
exclusively  given  to  the  part  played  in  the  upheaval  by  the 
vigorous  "  men  of  Kent "  under  the  leadership  of  the  famous 
Wat  Tyler.  This  man  knew  well  what  he  was  about.  The 
common  citizens  and  apprentices  of  London  were  obviously 
favourable  to  his  enterprise,  seeing  that  his  army  was  able  to 
enter  the  capital  without  opposition,  and  the  Tower  of  London 
fell  into  his  hands  without  any  resistance.  There  was  no 
looting  or  incendiarism.  Those  only  fell  victims  to  the  revolt- 
ing peasantry  who  had,  as  they  thought,  prevented  a  peaceful 
solution  of  the  whole  difference  by  interfering  between  them- 
selves and  the  King.  Tyler  himself,  with  London  in  his  power 
and  his  army  encouraged  by  success,  was  still  willing  to  negotiate; 
knowing  by  experience  as  a  soldier  the  difficulty  of  keeping  a 
large  body  of  men  together,  even  in  the  metropolis,  without 
thorough  discipline  and  an  organised  commissariat.  He  there- 
fore went  forward  without,  as  it  appears,  a  proper  personal 
guard,  to  treat  with  King  Richard  II.  in  person.  What  followed 
he  might  have  anticipated,  if  only  from  what  had  so  often 
happened  before.  The  King,  pretending  that  he  himself  would 
lead  the  people  and  grant  them  their  demands,  took  good  care 


THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND     197 

that  Tyler  should  be  treacherously  murdered.  His  immediate 
following,  discouraged  by  the  death  of  their  leader,  disbanded, 
and  were  cruelly  butchered  by  the  King  and  his  nobles.  Partial 
successes  were  achieved  by  the  peasants  in  the  counties  sur- 
rounding London,  and  over  the  greater  part  of  England.  But  the 
result  in  every  case  was  the  same.  The  leaders  were  either  killed, 
treacherously  assassinated,  or  condemned  by  suborned  courts 
and  corrupt  juries;  and  the  peasants  fell  victims  to  their  enemies. 

None  of  the  horrors  which  befell  the  French  Jacquerie  on 
their  defeat  were  spared  to  the  English  peasantry  after  their 
struggle.  Atrocities  of  the  most  abominable  description  were 
wreaked  upon  the  defeated  people  and  their  families  wherever 
the  least  opportunity  was  offered.  The  King  distinguished 
himself  by  his  ruthlessness  in  this  campaign  of  butchery,  as 
might  have  been  expected  from  the  son  of  the  Black  Prince. 
He  and  his  barons  rivalled  the  French  nobles  in  their  hideous 
acts  of  cruelty.  But  the  English  peasants,  being  further 
advanced  in  their  progress  towards  the  next  period,  were  better 
able  to  withstand  their  oppressors,  and  the  conflict,  instead  of 
being  brought  to  an  end  within  thirty  days,  extended  over 
several  months.  There  was  the  less  excuse  for  the  reign  of 
terror  instituted  over  so  large  a  part  of  the  coimtry,  since  the 
insurrectionists  were  guilty  of  little  outrage  and  destruction. 
Moreover,  the  demands  of  the  serfs  and  peasants  for  complete 
emancipation  and  financial  relief  from  odious  taxation  were  so 
obviously  just,  and,  what  is  more  important  in  our  consideration 
of  historical  sequence,  so  fully  in  accordance  with  the  stage  of 
economic  and  social  development  attained,  that  even  the  young 
King,  guided  by  his  more  capable  counsellors,  suggested  that  it 
might  be  well  to  anticipate  the  inevitable  by  granting  freedom 
and  withdrawing  the  obnoxious  poll  tax.  But  the  time  for 
full  surrender  was  not  yet. 

Once  more,  therefore,  the  rightful  endeavour  of  an  oppressed 
class,  this  time  our  own  countrymen,  to  secure  their  enfranchise- 
ment by  force  of  arms  failed,  under  circumstances  where  success 
might  reasonably  have  appeared  to  the  revolters  almost  certain. 
Not  only  were  their  claims  justifiable  and,  if  they  had  been 
granted,  beneficial  in  the  long  run  to  the  dominant  class  itself, 
but,  having  obtained  control  of  the  metropolis,  they  held  a 
strong   strategic  and  economic  position.    By  means  of  this 


198  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Tyler  judged  that  he  could  compel  the  acceptance  of  such  terms 
as  would  ensure  to  the  people  all  over  England  everything 
that  could  be  gained  by  force  at  that  juncture,  confirming  also 
their  political  position  at  the  same  time.  Yet  the  peasants  and 
their  friends,  the  farmers  and  small  bourgeoisie,  miscalculated  their 
strength.  Not  that  the  rising  was  entirely  without  its  influence 
later.  The  fear  of  what  might  occur  of  a  similar  character  on 
a  larger  scale  helped  towards  the  recognition  of  the  freedoms 
of  the  people,  accompanying  the  final  break-up  of  the  feudal 
system  in  England,  and  the  greatly  increased  well-being  of 
the  mass  of  Englishmen  from  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century 
onwards  throughout  the  fifteenth.  The  latter  century,  not- 
withstanding the  general  disturbance  of  the  country  by  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  and  the  suicide  of  the  barons  and  their 
retainers,  by  their  treacherous  campaigns  against  one  another 
and  the  frequent  changes  of  kingship,  was  the  most  favourable 
age  for  the  mass  of  Englishmen  that  the  nation  had  yet  reached. 
What  had  been  striven  for  unavailingly  by  force  in  the 
previous  generation,  was  realised  almost  imperceptibly  by  the 
immediate  descendants  of  the  men  who  had  listened  to 
the  exhortations  of  John  Ball,  and  tried  to  realise  them  by 
fighting  under  Wat  Tyler.  In  the  middle  of  the  century 
villeinage  and  serfdom  had  virtually  disappeared  all  over 
England  through  the  unseen  but  inevitable  social  changes 
brought  about  by  economic  necessity.  Englishmen,  from  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  Richard  II.  to  the  early  portion  of  that  of 
Henry  VIII.,  were  in  the  main  a  well-to-do  body  of  free  farmers 
and  free  labourers,  having  friendly  relations  with  the  artisans, 
citizens  and  burgesses  of  the  towns.  As  a  whole  the  English- 
men of  that  period  were  a  population  well-fed,  well-clothed,  not 
ill-housed,  alike  in  town  and  in  country,  who  had  a  clear  con- 
ception of  their  own  rights  and  importance.  The  silent  progress 
of  peace  had  gained  for  them  a  great  social  victory.  The 
temporarily  successful  political  rising  of  Jack  Cade  was  chiefly 
remarkable  for  the  facts  that  practically  all  classes  of  the  men 
of  Kent  joined  in  his  movement ;  that  his  army  easily  de- 
feated the  forces  of  the  King ;  and  that,  although  Cade  himself 
was  sacrificed  when  his  followers  dispersed,  no  attempt  was 
made  at  revenge  upon  the  insurrectionists  such  as  had  been 
wreaked  upon  Tyler's  peasants  seventy  years  before.     They 


THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND    199 

gained  little  by  their  revolt  beyond  the  privilege  of  recording 
their  "  complaint,"  but  they  retained  the  independent  position 
they  had  previously  acquired. 

England  thus  affords  another  example  that  the  course  of 
economic  events  and  unconscious  social  progress  may  secure 
prosperity  for  a  people  who  have  been  unable  to  win  their  way 
to  freedom  by  arms  before  the  time  was  ripe.  Yet  no  country 
has  so  completely  demonstrated  the  truth  that  economic 
changes  may  also  crush  the  mass  of  an  agricultural  population, 
in  spite  of  the  conjoint  efforts  of  the  Government  and  people 
to  check  this  harmful  development,  favoured  by  the  socially 
dominant  class  of  the  period.  The  sixteenth  century,  with  all 
its  national,  piratical  and  literary  glamour  for  the  upper  classes, 
was  the  century  when  the  English  common  folk  were  deprived 
of  control  over  their  own  land,  by  a  series  of  events  which 
hitherto  have  had  no  parallel  in  any  other  country.  This  ex- 
propriation was  accompanied  by  an  increase  of  vagrancy  and 
vagabondage,  due  to  no  laziness  on  the  part  of  those  thus  turned 
into  homeless  wanderers,  which  laid  the  foundation  in  Great 
Britain,  even  thus  early,  of  the  propertyless  wage-slave  class 
of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries. 

The  first  symptom  of  the  break-up  of  the  old  feudal  system, 
so  far  as  it  affected  the  lot  of  the  common  folk,  was  the  discharge 
by  the  impoverished  barons  of  the  numbers  of  retainers  who 
were  necessary  to  secure  their  status,  and  even  their  safety 
during  the  civil  wars,  but  were  an  intolerable  encumbrance 
upon  them  when  the  bloody  struggle  came  to  an  end.  By  his 
marriage  with  Elizabeth  of  York,  Henry  VII.  after  the  battle 
of  Bosworth  rendered  his  title  to  the  throne  almost  indisput- 
able ;  and,  to  make  his  position  yet  more  secure,  he  enforced  upon 
those  landowners  who  were  still  able  to  keep  large  bodies  of 
men  in  attendance  the  discharge  of  these  unprofitable  servants 
who  had  no  longer  any  parasitical  duties  to  perform.  Hence 
many  of  these  unfortunate  retainers  of  the  lower  grades  who 
had  no  land  at  their  disposal  to  till  found  themselves  out  upon 
the  highways  unable  to  earn  a  living.  They  were  regarded 
therefore  as  vagrants  and  "  masterless  men,"  wandering  about 
not  because  they  were  unable  to  get  employment,  but  because 
they  left  their  places  of  birth  out  of  sheer  perversity.  Statutes 
against  them  were  passed  from  1494  onwards,  and  the  clauses 


200  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

of  these  became  more  and  more  cruel  as  time  went  on  and 
vagrants  became  more  numerous.  For  other  forces  were  at 
work  to  aggravate  the  condition  of  the  poor.  The  landowners, 
who  had  been  ruined  by  the  debts  incurred  by  the  wars,  sought 
to  reimburse  themselves  by  enclosing  the  people's  common 
land  and  other  lands,  recognised  as  appertaining  to  the  villagers. 
At  the  same  time  the  farmers,  like  the  landowners  who 
cultivated  their  own  property  or  the  common  lands  they  had 
enclosed,  resorted  to  pasture  instead  of  arable  farming,  in  order 
to  supply  wool,  which  was  then  at  a  very  high  price,  for  the 
home,  and  above  all  for  the  Flemish  wool  manufacturers.  This 
raising  of  wool  showed  two  profits  to  the  farmer :  one  in  the 
saving  of  wages  (for  sheep  need  fewer  hands  to  the  acre  than 
arable  land),  the  second  by  the  rise  in  the  price  of  wool.  Thus, 
while  the  yeomanry  and  tenantry  were  being  removed  often  by 
fraudulent  devices,  the  introduction  of  sheep-farming  greatly 
reduced  the  niunber  of  labourers  employed  on  the  farms.  Two 
such  different  men  as  Sir  Thomas  More,  writing  at  the  time, 
and  Lord  Bacon,  writing  as  a  student  of  history  in  the  reign  of 
James  I.,  notice  the  ruinous  effect  of  this  reactionary  movement 
on  the  land.  Thus  More  speaks  of  the  injury  done  to  the 
commonwealth  by  those  who  "  leave  no  ground  for  tillage,  they 
enclose  all  into  pastures,  they  throw  down  houses.  Therefore," 
he  proceeds,  "  that  one  covetous  and  insatiable  cormorant  and 
very  plague  of  his  native  country  may  compass  about  and 
enclose  many  thousands  acres  of  ground  together  within  one 
pale  or  hedge,  the  husbandmen  be  thrust  out  of  their  own,  or 
else  by  coveyn  and  fraud,  or  by  violent  oppression,  they  be 
put  beside  it,  or  by  wrongs  and  injuries  they  be  so  worried  that 
they  be  compelled  to  sell  all :  by  one  means,  therefore,  or 
another,  either  by  hook  or  by  crook,  they  must  needs  depart 
away,  poor  silly,  wretched  souls,  men,  women,  husbands,  wives, 
fatherless  children,  widows,  woeful  mothers  with  their  young 
babes,  and  their  whole  household,  small  in  substance  and  much 
in  number,  as  husbandry  requireth  many  hands.  Away  they 
trudge,  I  say,  out  of  their  known  and  accustomed  houses  finding 
no  place  to  rest  in.  All  their  household  stuff,  which  is  very 
little  worth,  though  it  might  well  abide  the  sale,  yet  being 
suddenly  thrust  out,  they  may  be  constrained  to  sell  it  for  a 
thing  of  nought.     And,  when  they  have  wandered  about  till 


THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND    201 

that  be  spent,  what  can  they  else  do  but  steal  and  then  justly, 
pardy,  be  hanged,  or  else  go  about  begging.  And  yet  these, 
also,  they  be  cast  into  prison  as  vagabonds,  because  they  go 
about  and  work  not ;  whom  no  man  will  set  awork  though  they 
never  so  wiUingly  proffer  themselves  thereto.  For  one  shepherd 
or  herdsman  is  enough  to  set  up  that  ground  with  cattle  to  the 
occupying  whereof  about  husbandry  many  hands  w^ere  requisite. 
And  this  is  also  the  cause  why  victuals  be  now  in  many  places 
dearer.  Yea,  besides  this,  the  price  of  wool  is  so  that  poor  folks 
which  were  wont  to  work  it,  and  make  cloth  thereof,  be  now 
able  to  buy  none  at  all.  And  by  this  means  very  many  be 
forced  to  forsake  work  and  to  give  themselves  to  idleness." 

Lord  Bacon  in  his  turn  deals  with  the  same  set  of  circum- 
stances. But  he  states,  quite  incorrectly,  that  the  legislation 
of  Henry  VII.,  w^hich  he  approves,  checked  the  evil,  whereas 
it  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  Thus  :  "  Enclosures  at  that  time 
began  to  be  more  frequent,  whereby  arable  land,  wliich  could 
not  be  manured  without  people  and  families,  was  turned  into 
pasture  which  was  easily  rid  by  a  few  herdsmen  ;  and  the 
tenancies  for  years,  lives  and  at  will,  whereupon  much  of  the 
yeomanry  lived,  were  turned  into  demesnes.  Thus  began  a 
decay  of  people,  and  by  consequence  a  decay  of  towns,  churches, 
tithes  and  the  like.  The  King  likewise  knew  full  well,  and  in 
nowise  forgot,  that  there  ensued  withal  upon  this  decay,  and 
diminution  of  subsidies  and  taxes  for  the  more  gentlemen." 
For  this  last  reason  more  particularly  Henry  VII.  was  very 
anxious  to  check  or  at  least  to  reduce  this  tendency  to  ex- 
propriate the  peasant  farmers  from  their  holdings,  to  extend 
the  area  of  enclosures  and  to  substitute  pasture  for  arable 
farming.  Hence,  as  Bacon  records,  an  ordinance :  "  That 
all  houses  of  husbandry  that  were  used  with  twenty  acres  of 
ground  and  upwards  should  be  used  and  kept  for  corn  ;  together 
with  a  competent  proportion  of  land  to  be  used  and  occupied 
with  them  and  in  nowise  to  be  severed  from  them,  as  by 
another  statute  made  afterwards  in  his  successor's  time  was 
more  fully  declared  :  this  upon  forfeiture  to  be  taken,  not  by 
popular  action,  but  by  seizure  of  the  land  itself,  by  the  kings  and 
the  lords  of  fee,  as  to  half  the  profits  until  the  house  and  lands 
were  restored.  By  this  means  the  houses  being  kept  up  did 
of  necessity  enforce  that  dweller  not  to  be  a  beggar  or  a  cottager 


202  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

but  a  man  of  some  substance  that  might  keep  hinds  and 
servants,  and  set  the  plough  going." 

This  was  all  very  well ;  but  the  Statutes  had  no  more  effect 
upon  the  victory  of  the  enclosers  and  sheep  farmers  than  the 
horrible  laws  against  vagrants,  under  which  they  were  flogged, 
branded,  tortured,  hanged  or  enslaved,  prevented  the  economic 
effects  of  this  systematic  land-grabbing,  and  the  pastoral  com- 
petition with  arable  culture,  from  turning  out  thousands  of  poor 
people  on  the  highroads,  to  be  treated  in  this  ruthless  fashion. 
The  overthrow  of  the  monasteries,  priories  and  convents,  and 
the  giving  of  their  lands  to  the  King's  favourites,  or  their  reten- 
tion in  ownership  by  Henry  VIII.  himself,  did  but  intensify  the 
prevailing  tendency  to  vagabondage  which  was  terribly  pre- 
valent at  the  time  when  Bacon  wrote.  The  abbots  and  priors, 
after  the  decay  of  serfdom,  had  been  for  their  own  sake  easy 
landlords,  who  helped  the  poor  and  kept  up  the  roads  between 
their  farms.  But  the  good  and  the  ill  they  did  were  swept  away 
together.  The  courtiers  and  rogues  who  obtained  their  estates 
performed  no  such  social  duties,  to  balance  a  greed  and  laziness 
quite  equal  to  all  the  shortcomings  imputed  to  the  celibate  men 
of  God  in  this  respect. 

Thus  the  King's  enactments,  even  when  well-intentioned,  were 
powerless  to  stop  economic  action  to  the  hurt  of  the  peasants, 
and  the  laws  prohibiting  vagrancy  under  hideous  penalties 
failed  entirely  of  effect.  Also,  in  England  under  Henry  IT^IL,  as 
in  France  a  hundred  years  before,  the  debasement  of  the  coinage 
affected  harmfully  the  entire  country;  and  monarchical  mis- 
rule, going  hand  in  hand  with  the  removal  of  all  power  from  the 
lower  strata  of  the  trade  guilds,  reduced  the  heirs  of  the  free 
Englishmen  of  the  fifteenth  century  to  a  much  inferior  position 
in  the  sixteenth.  This  was  followed  by  other  serious  risings 
over  nearly  the  whole  country  from  Devonshire  to  Norfolk,  in 
which  men  of  considerable  substance,  like  Kett,  the  famous 
tanner  of  Wymondham,  led  the  common  folk.  Here,  in  many 
cases,  religious  devotion  to  the  old  creed  went  with  hatred  of 
intolerable  oppression;  and  in  some  districts  men  of  far  higher 
standing  than  those  who  took  part  in  the  previous  risings  helped 
the  popular  movement.  All  to  no  purpose,  however.  Revolt 
beat  unavailingly  against  the  tyranny  of  the  King  and  the  land- 
owners.    The  people,  who  were  suffering  under  every  form  of 


THE  PEASANTS'  WAR  IN  ENGLAND    203 

injustice,  were  driven  back  to  their  hovels  :  their  leaders,  as 
usual,  were  hanged.  While  the  trading  class  under  the  Tudors 
were  being  greatly  enriched  by  commerce,  and  the  intellectual 
minority  of  the  metropolis  and  the  country  were  displaying 
a  brilliancy  in  literature  and  philosophy  which  will  bear  com- 
parison with  the  best  period  of  Athens,  the  mass  of  the  people 
were  being  deprived  of  freedom  and  well-being  to  an  extent 
from  which  they  have  never  yet  recovered. 

Such  is  the  perpetual  irony  of  economic  and  social  history. 
Periods  in  the  life  of  mankind  which  seem  on  looking  back  the 
highest  and  most  beautiful  in  the  annals  of  the  race,  periods 
when  art,  science,  letters  flourished  to  such  a  degree  that  even 
now  we  can  scarcely  comprehend  how  so  much  glory  and  beauty 
and  dignity  were  crowded  within  such  narrow  limits  of  time  and 
space — these  very  days  of  intellectual  magnificence  and  great- 
ness covered  up  the  vile  condition  of  the  toilers  below — a  con- 
dition the  more  degrading  and  horrible  by  reason  of  the  splen- 
dour above  wliich  we  so  deeply  admire  and  strive  in  vain  to 
rival  and  imitate.  This  is  most  true  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  It 
was  indeed  a  stirring  time.  A  new  world  was  being  discovered 
in  art  and  science  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  actual  existence  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Statesmen  and  thinkers,  church- 
men and  courtiers,  soldiers  and  navigators,  poets  and  dramatists 
sweep  past  us  in  magnificent  array.  All  is  full  of  Ufe  and  colour. 
Few  groups  stand  out  in  bolder  relief  than  the  great  men  who 
gathered  around  the  throne  of  the  Tudors.  Never  before  had  so 
strong  an  impulse  been  given  to  human  enterprise  and  human 
imagination ;  never  in  England  have  noble  minds  been  more 
ready  to  embrace  great  opportunities.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  the  dominant  class  of  our  day,  nothing  can  be  finer  than  the 
survey  :  the  rise  of  our  bourgeoisie  is  surrounded  with  a  glamour 
which  conceals  from  most  observers  the  growth  of  misery  among 
the  people.  Yet  from  the  first  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
lot  of  the  great  mass  of  working  Englishmen,  which  had  been  so 
flourishing  and  so  wholesome,  became  miserable  in  the  extreme, 
and  the  labourers  of  England  were  reduced  to  destitution — 
plunged  quite  unnecessarily  from  the  age  of  gold  into  the  iron 
age. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  GERMAN  BAUERN  KRIEG 

The  last,  and  by  far  the  most  formidable,  of  the  peasant  wars 
in  Europe  began  in  Germany  in  the  autumn  of  1524,  and  broke 
out  into  open  revolt  in  the  spring  of  1525.  The  general  causes 
of  this  serious  upheaval  were  much  the  same  as  those  of  the 
Jacquerie  in  1358  and  the  English  Peasant  Rising  in  1381. 
But  there  was  no  defeat  and  consequent  rapine  and  devasta- 
tion by  the  disbanded  soldiery  as  happened  in  France  after 
the  rout  of  Poitiers  to  rouse  the  peasantry ;  nor  were  there  such 
obvious  reasons  for  discontent  and  forcible  resistance  as  brought 
about  the  rising  under  Wat  Tyler  and  his  fellow-leaders  in 
England.  On  the  other  hand,  nowhere  was  the  continuous  op- 
pression of  the  feudal  nobles  and  the  knights  more  keenly  felt 
than  in  Central  Europe ;  and  the  complaints  of  the  peasantry, 
with  their  frequent  local  spasmodic  efforts  at  emancipation 
from  the  outrageous  tyranny  and  cruelty,  prove  that  feudalism 
had  ceased  to  have  any  "good  side"  to  its  brutality,  so  far  as 
the  mass  of  the  people. were  concerned.  Raids,  robbery  and 
spoliation  by  the  higher  and  lower  order  of  landowners  had 
become  a  portion  of  the  people's  everyday  life.  There  was 
nothing  to  restrain  the  nobles.  Appeal  by  the  peasants  to  the 
Emperor  and  courts  against  this  systematic  plunder  was  useless. 
Such  proceedings  were  regarded  as  essential  to  maintain 
the  due  standing  in  court  and  in  castle  of  all  who  were  raised, 
by  lineal  descent  or  Imperial  favour,  above  the  traders  and  the 
common  herd.  Nor  did  these  landed  aristocrats  and  manorial 
magnificos  confine  their  piracies  and  lootings  to  their  own  or 
other  people's  tenantry.  Up  and  down  the  Rhine  and  other 
important  rivers,  along  the  principal  trade  routes  by  land — 
highroads  they  could  not  be  called — were  situated  fortified 
castles,  whose  ruins,  or  restored  battlements,  remain  to  this  day, 
whence  the  owners  sallied  forth  with  their  retainers  to  exact  toll, 
ransom,  or,  if  need  were,  complete  surrender  of  their  goods,  from 

204 


THE  GERMAN  BAUERN  KRIEG         205 

any  traffickers  or  merchants  who  passed  that  way.  They  con- 
stituted part  of  the  risks  of  home  commerce,  and  their  exactions 
from  all  sections  of  the  community,  directly  and  indirectly,  did 
much  to  keep  prices  at  a  high  level. 

Details  are  not  wanting  to  show  how  the  barons  of  Central 
Europe  rivalled  their  fellow-nobles  in  other  lands  in  their 
abominable  treatment  of  their  serfs  and  peasants.  Perhaps  they 
did  not  resort  quite  so  frequently  as  the  worst  type  of  French 
aristocrat  to  the  horrible  punishment  of  cutting  off  the  feet  of 
their  serfs  when  they  stood  out  against  ruinous  seizure  of  their 
crops,  nor  did  they  indulge  so  often  in  the  extremes  of  lustful 
cruelty  familiar  in  the  annals  of  other  aristocracies ;  though 
even  this  partial  limitation  of  their  brutality  is  of  doubtful 
certitude.  But  in  the  outrageous  treatment  of  their  defence- 
less people  for  trifling  offences  nothing  ever  exceeded  the  infamy 
of  the  German  nobles.  Muttering  against  the  lord,  accidental 
failure  to  accord  to  him  the  most  degrading  evidence  of  servility, 
failure  to  pay  in  kind  or  in  money  the  demands  of  the  feudal 
landowner,  were  avenged  by  imprisonment  in  frightful  dungeons, 
by  torture  relentlessly  repeated,  and  often  by  death.  Every 
restriction  imposed  upon  fishing,  capture  or  shooting  of  game, 
or  gathering  of  wood  was  rigorously  enforced.  Customs  telling 
in  favour  of  the  tenantry  were  frequently  disregarded,  and 
increased  gratuitious  service  under  the  feudal  corvee  was  intro- 
duced wherever  possible.  As  elsewhere,  also,  the  serfs  and 
peasants  were  mulcted  in  heavy  fines,  or  in  such  penalties  as 
the  lord  thought  proper  to  enforce  on  the  marriage  of  their 
daughters,  a  power  bitterly  resented  in  every  country  where  it 
was  exercised. 

As  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  townships,  they  also  had  their 
grievances  against  the  greater  nobles  from  whom  they  had 
mostly  obtained  their  municipal  rights ;  while]  the  gradual  de- 
struction of  democratic  control  in  the  trade  gmlds  was  increas- 
ing the  influence  of  the  rich  masters  and  traders  and  putting  the 
free  journeymen  and  craftsmen  into  the  position  of  dependent 
wage-earners,  with  less  and  less  possibility  of  becoming  masters 
of  the  craft. 

Thus  there  was  plenty  of  ground  for  dissatisfaction  and  re- 
sistance in  smaU  towns — aU  German  towns  were  then  really 
small — and  country  alike.     The  economic  and  social  antagonisms 


206  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

were  never  greater ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  extension  of  the 
art  of  printing  and  the  growth  of  public  discussion  on  reUgious 
and  secular  matters,  even  among  the  common  people,  helped  to 
spread  the  general  discontent. 

Other  causes  are  given  for  the  rising  at  this  particular  date, 
in  addition  to  those  recited  above,  which  are  commonly  recog- 
nised. The  whole  feudal  system  was  being  shaken,  owing  to  its 
incapacity  to  adapt  itself  to  the  new  forms  of  industry  being 
introduced,  to  the  unobserved  but  steady  improvements  in 
agriculture,  to  the  substitution  of  money  payments  for  barter 
in  exchange  and  in  payment  of  dues,  to  the  extension  of  trade, 
the  scarcity  of  the  precious  metals,  and  the  commencement  of 
production  and  trade  for  the  world  market.  Yet  it  is  easy  to 
attach  too  much  importance  to  nearly  the  whole  of  these  modi- 
fications in  the  Central  Europe  of  1525.  No  doubt  the  Hanse- 
atic  League  and  Germany  generally  were  beginning  to  feel  the 
influence  on  trade  of  the  discovery  of  America,  the  rounding  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  diversion  of  Eastern  commerce  from 
the  great  Mediterranean  seaports  to  the  Atlantic  by  the  Ottoman 
Turks,  and  the  extension  of  trade  with  Flanders  and  England  as 
well  as  with  France  and  Spain.  But  that  this  expansion  had 
got  far  enough  to  affect  seriously,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  position  of  the  peasants  who  formed  the  backbone  of  the  in- 
surrection— for  Germany  produced  no  Etienne  Marcel  and  had 
no  Paris  to  form  a  centre  of  political  influence — may  fairly  be 
regarded  as  unUkely.  Nor  can  it  be  confidently  urged  that 
the  feudalism  of  Germany,  taken  as  a  whole,  was  nearly  so  far 
advanced  towards  its  decay  and  downfall  as  the  intellectual 
activity  then  being  exhibited  might  lead  us  to  suppose.  There 
were  changes  going  on  which  eventually  shook  the  whole  edifice. 
But  they  were  working  even  more  slowly  than  elsewhere,  and 
continued  to  do  so  for  generations  afterwards.  Serfdom  did  not 
come  to  an  end  in  Germany  till  1811 ;  and  Germany,  even  in 
1920,  for  all  its  Republic,  is  the  most  feudalist  nation  in  Europe. 
The  Junkers  of  Germany,  living  and  working  upon  their  great 
estates,  detestable  as  they  are  in  all  national  and  international 
relations,  are  still  feudal  magnates  modernised,  with  the  re- 
sources of  science  at  their  disposal.  There  has  been  no  French 
nor  even  English  revolution  in  Germany,  and  the  reason  for  this 
may  be  traced  back  to  the  sixteenth  century. 


THE  GERMAN  BAUERN  KRIEG         207 

There  is  probably  more  in  the  contention  that  the  great  rise  of 
Protestantism  in  Germany,  the  growing  revolt  against  Catholic- 
ism, then  in  its  most  corrupt  and  criminal  period  of  Roman 
supremacy,  had  some  effect,  like  Lollardism  and  "  the  hedge 
priests  "  in  England,  in  rousing  a  new  spirit  in  the  people.  It 
is  certain  that  the  most  widely  spread  agitatory  literature,  and 
the  most  vigorous  section  of  the  propagandists,  adopted  a  strong 
Biblical  and  religious  tone.  Curiously  enough,  however,  the 
demand  for  the  salvation  of  the  individual  hereafter  took  pre- 
cedence of  the  forcible  attempt  to  secure  individual  well-being 
here.  How  far  the  one  really  anticipated  or  produced  the  other 
it  is  difficult  to  say.  The  strict  school  of  economic  determinism 
is  of  opinion  that  the  whole  Protestant  movement,  in  its  widest 
sense,  was  a  purely  psychological  expression  of  social  and  econo- 
mic striving  for  individual  emancipation  below.  It  may  be  so, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  descry  this  exclusively  material  influence  at 
work  to  produce  the  revolt  against  the  domination  of  Rome  in 
religion  from  Huss  and  others  onwards.  Moreover,  there  is  the 
very  clearest  historic  proof  that  in  different  countries,  as  well  as 
in  parts  of  the  same  country,  Catholicism,  when  apparently 
defeated  and  at  its  last  gasp,  not  oniy  retained  its  hold  upon 
territory  it  was  still  controlling,  but  even  regained  ground  previ- 
ously lost.  This  ecclesiastical  success  was  achieved,  although  the 
economic  and  social  movement  went  on,  there  as  elsewhere,  in 
the  same  way  as  before. 

But  that  is  aside  from  the  matter  in  hand.  The  truth  appears 
to  be  that  in  all  great  historic  periods  the  two  elements  of  pro- 
gress are  so  closely  aUied  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  them. 
As  is  well  pointed  out  by  Bax  in  his  history  of  this  same  Peasants' 
War,  every  new  religion  partly  absorbs,  and  partly  is  absorbed 
by  the  preceding  dominant  creed.  So  also  the  economic  pro- 
gress goes  on  below,  only  influenced  at  special  times  by  the  form 
of  reUgion  favoured  above.  But  the  fact  that  the  peasants  in 
(icrmany  took  not  only  their  phraseology,  but  even  some  of  their 
revolutionary  proposals  from  the  Jewish  sacred  and  secular 
literature  embodied  in  the  Bible,  as  many  of  the  English  peasants 
did  in  their  revolts,  and  the  English  middle  class  did  during  its 
revolution  a  hundred  years  and  more  later,  only  proves  that 
mankind  can  turn  its  most  effective  and  popular  theological 
literature  to  immediate  social  use. 


208  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Unquestionably  tlie  success  which  the  peasants  achieved  at 
first  against  their  lords  and  landowners  was  largely  due  to  the 
absence  of  the  armed  and  trained  men  of  the  nobility,  who 
were  following  Emperor  Charles  V.  in  his  campaign  against 
Francis  I.,  which  ended  in  his  crushing  defeat  of  the  French  king 
at  Pavia.  There  was  also  the  hereditary  contempt  for  the  serfs 
and  peasants  which  led  the  aristocracy  and  knighthood  to  believe 
that  they  were  something  less  than  men,  and  that,  therefore,  in 
spite  of  the  numerous  local  risings  for  revenge  which  preceded 
the  greater  outbreak,  the  attack  could  never  be  really  serious. 
They  were  mistaken.  If  there  had  been  any  organised  and 
centralised  control  of  the  local  risings,  had  the  peasants  found 
any  really  capable  military  leader,  such  as  Gotz  von  Berlichingen 
might  have  been,  they  would  have  done  much  more  than  they 
did.  But,  above  all,  what  was  needed  was  a  combination  be- 
tween town  and  country,  a  consolidation  of  political  and  rural 
action  all  round.  Yet  for  this  the  time  was  not  ripe,  and  the 
lack  of  comprehension,  not  to  say  the  antagonism  between  the 
peasants  and  the  growing  class  of  indigent  townsfolk,  was  a 
weakness  throughout. 

The  first  important  rising  occurred  in  the  Black  Forest  in 
August,  1524.  As  elsewhere,  the  peasants  found  a  local  leader 
of  some  military  experience.  Clearly  the  whole  country  was 
ready  for  revolt,  since  the  unrest  spread  so  rapidly  that  by  the 
end  of  October  the  peasants  had  a  formidable  force  which  in-f 
duced  the  magnates  of  the  district  to  negotiate  seriously  with 
them  and  to  promise  certain  concessions.  The  demands  of  the 
peasants  were  extremely  moderate,  dealing  only  with  obvious 
injustice  and  oppression  relating  to  the  land.  All  the  suggestions 
of  reform  on  the  side  of  the  lords  were  the  merest  pretence,  put 
forward  to  gain  time  to  concentrate  their  own  forces,  and  collect 
a  body  of  free  companies  and  other  mercenaries  to  co-operate 
with  them.  The  nobility  never  had  any  intention  of  giving  way 
on  any  point ;  and  they  relied  upon  bad  faith  and  treachery,  as 
well  as  organised  force  to  retain  their  rights  of  oppression  over 
their  serfs  and  villeins.  In  March,  1525,  the  peasants  formulated 
their  famous  twelve  articles,  drawn  up  by  a  minister,and  forming 
a  curious  mixture  of  Biblical  aspiration  and  simple  claims  for 
decent  treatment.  These  twelve  articles  were  accepted  in  their 
original  form  all  over  Germany.    But,  divested  of  the  theo- 


THE  GERMAN  BAUERN  KRIEG         209 

logical  phraseology,  they  were  thus  summarised  by  the  peasants 
of  one  district : 

1.  Gospel  shall  be  preached  according  to  the  true  faith. 

2.  No  tithes  shall  be  given,  neither  great  nor  small. 

3.  There  shall  be  no  longer  interest  and  no  longer  dues,  more 
than  one  gulden  in  twenty. 

4.  All  waters  shall  be  free. 

5.  All  woods  and  forests  shall  be  free. 

6.  All  game  shall  be  free. 

7.  None  shall  any  longer  be  in  a  state  of  villeinage. 

8.  None  shall  obey  any  longer  any  prince  or  lord,  but  such 
as  pleaseth  him,  and  that  shall  be  the  Emperor. 

9.  Justice  and  right  shall  be  as  of  old  time. 

10.  Should  there  be  one  having  authority  who  displeaseth 
us,  we  shall  have  the  power  to  set  up  in  his  place  another  as  it 
pleaseth  us. 

11.  There  shall  be  no  more  death  dues. 

12.  The  common  lands  which  the  lords  have  taken  to  them- 
selves shall  again  become  common  lands. 

(Bax.) 

There  is  nothing  here  of  the  revolutionary  and  idealist  pro- 
gramme which  soon  after  came  to  the  front,  as  the  towns  began 
to  have  their  say  in  the  matter.  Men  such  as  Hipland,  Weigand, 
Gaismayer,  Pfeiffer  and,  above  all,  Munzer,  had  far  wider  pro- 
jects, reUgious  and  poUtical,  in  view  than  these  simple  agrarian 
reforms.  They  were,  in  fact,  to  use  the  phrase  of  a  much  later 
time,  Christian  Socialists,  or  socialisers  of  a  theological  turn  of 
mind,  who  desired  to  institute  that  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth, 
which  varies  so  remarkably  in  conception  according  to  the  idea 
of  the  divinity  obtaining  at  the  time,  and  the  material  condi- 
tions which  seem  to  be  required  for  its  reaUsation.  Men  and 
women,  however,  peasants  and  proletarians  alike,  have  always 
been  found  ready  and  even  eager  to  sacrifice  themselves  for 
what  is  no  more  than  a  genial  hallucination.  It  certainly  was 
so  in  Germany  at  this  period.  But  there  were  others  who 
naturally,  however  hopelessly,  struck  with  all  their  force  at  the 
enemies  of  the  common  people;  especially  after  it  had  been 
discovered  that  the  ruling  caste,  as  has  been  invariably  the 
case  throughout  history,  rarely  or  never  kept  faith  with  their 


210  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

subordinates  in  revolt.  In  some  cases  members  of  the  nobility 
and  their  families  were  quite  justly  put  to  death  for  their 
crimes,  and  in  many  cases  their  castles,  which  were  no  better 
than  dens  of  thieves  and  robbers,  were  looted  and  burnt  to 
the  ground.  But  taken  as  a  whole,  and  considering  the  in- 
tolerable outrages — blinding  of  eyes,  torture  of  every  kind, 
and  ruthless  massacre  where  convenient — beside  the  tyranny 
to  which  they  had  been  subjected,  it  is  wonderful  that  the 
peasants  and  the  townsfolk  were  so  moderate  in  their  treat- 
ment of  their  foes  during  the  early  months  of  1525,  when  the 
movement  was  nearly  everywhere  successful.  The  peasants 
had  been  fortunate  enough  to  secure  an  able  and  apparently 
honest  general,  in  the  person  of  the  Knight  Florian  Geyer,  whose 
policy  in  the  town  of  Rothenburg  was  completely  successful 
and  brought  over  the  whole  people  to  the  side  of  the  peasants. 
But  there  was  still  no  thorough  and  permanent  discipline  among 
the  insurrectionary  forces.  The  peasants  everywhere  miscal- 
culated their  strength,  and  in  the  absence  of  competent  leaders 
ran  wholly  unwarranted  risks.  In  short,  notwithstanding  their 
victories  at  the  beginning  of  the  movement,  and  the  rallying  of 
Mulhausen  and  other  towns  to  the  side  of  the  "  Evangelical 
Brotherhood,"  with  the  peasants  generally,  it  is  now  easy  to  see 
that  they  could  not  have  gained  a  permanent  victory  over  their 
hereditary  enemies  and  that  the  townspeople  were  as  incapable 
as  themselves. 

Moreover,  with  the  exception  of  Rohrbach  and  Pfeiffer,  they 
appear  to  have  found  no  thoroughly  determined  civilian  leaders, 
while  they  did  not  entrust  one  of  their  military  chiefs,  Geyer, 
with  supreme  command ;  and  Gotz  von  Berlichingen,  whom  they 
forced  into  their  service,  betrayed  them  at  the  first  convenient 
opportunity.  The  failure  of  the  attack  upon  the  important 
and  to  them  practically  impregnable  fortress  of  Frauenburg, 
and  the  collapse  of  their  forces  at  Mulhausen,  accompanied 
and  followed  by  other  disasters  all  over  Germany,  discouraged 
the  whole  movement ;  while  the  return  of  the  Imperial  soldiery 
from  Italy  and  the  enlistment  of  ferocious  mercenaries  from  the 
east  of  Europe,  as  well  as  of  similar  but  possibly  less  butcherly 
bodies  close  at  hand,  put  the  nobles,  with  their  Suabian  League 
and  ruthless  general,  in  possession  of  irresistible  forces.  They 
used  them  in  similar  merciless  fashion  to  that  practised  by  their 


THE  GERMAN  BAUERN  KRIEG         211 

brethren  of  the  same  class  in  France  and  England.  Those  of 
the  peasants  and  townsfolk  who  were  massacred  wholesale  with 
the  utmost  brutality,  men,  women  and  children,  came  off  best. 
Details  of  what  befell  the  others  who  were  taken  ahve,  especially 
those  against  whom  the  nobility  and  chivalry  entertained  special 
animosity,  rival  the  tales  of  Red  Indian  torments.  Breaking  on 
the  wheel,  roasting  [slowly  alive,  the  application  of  "  the  ques- 
tion," in  its  most  horrible  and  lingering  form,  were  common 
methods  of  high-minded  vengeance  of  the  same  character  as 
those  practised  by  Richard  II.  and  his  barons,  Charles  the 
Bad,  the  Black  Prince  and  other  warriors  of  renown.  Few 
prisoners  underwent  even  the  form  of  trial,  and  fully  twenty 
thousand  people  in  a  single  district,  many  of  whom  had  taken 
no  part  whatever  in  the  rising,  were,  according  to  the  records  of 
the  time,  slaughtered  in  twenty-four  hours,  often  under  circum- 
stances of  inconceivable  atrocity.  The  class  war,  as  then  carried 
on  by  the  chivalry  of  Germany,  was  as  frightful  in  every  way  as 
the  vengeance  taken  on  the  defeated  slaves  and  peasants  under 
the  Roman  RepubUc  in  Italy  and  Sicily  and  in  Gaul.  Mercy  was 
unknown.  Even  now  in  Rothenburg  the  people  point  to  the 
channels  down  which  blood  poured  in  streams  when  the  day  of 
the  lords  in  that  unfortunate  township  had  fully  come.  It  is, 
in  short,  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  crimes  committed  at  the 
expense  of  the  common  folk  by  the  Junkers  of  that  day. 

What  adds  to  the  sadness  of  this  terrible  story  is  the  fact  that 
Martin  Luther,  his  associate  Melanchthon  and  their  friends,  after 
having  done  much  to  adjure  the  peasants  to  overtlirow  their 
masters — Luther  abusing  the  latter  with  a  fury  at  least  equal  to 
that  which  he  used  towards  his  religious  opponents — turned 
round  upon  the  defeated  peasants,  and  hounded  the  German 
nobility  on  to  their  monstrous  cruelties.  The  hatred  he  showed 
towards  these  unfortunate  serfs  and  peasants  entirely  destroys 
his  reputation  for  humanity.  There  was  no  real  desire  on  his 
part  to  raise  mankind  in  this  life.  Melanchthon  was  even  worse. 
Not  content  with  aiding  his  friend  of  Wittenberg  m  his  denunci- 
ation of  the  weak  who  did  the  work  of  the  world  while  they 
were  living,  he  actually  went  out  of  his  way  to  misrepresent 
and  vilify  their  leaders  when  they  were  dead.  This  proves  that, 
with  Protestant  and  religious  subversionist,  just  as  with  CathoUc 
reactionist,  class  goes  for  even  more  than  creed.    Holy  men  of 


212  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

all  religions  have  been  found  on  the  side  of  the  most  ruthless 
persecutors  of  the  people. 

But  much  as  we  may  detest  the  frightful  deeds  of  the  Duke  of 
Saxony  and  the  scarcely  less  frightful  incitations  to  murder  of 
Luther,  no  amount  of  righteous  indignation  can  conceal  from  us 
the  truth  that  the  peasants'  war  of  Germany  failed,  not  because 
of  the  ruthlessness  of  the  nobles,  the  lack  of  discipline  of  the 
peasants  and  poorer  townsmen,  or  the  bitter  animosity  against 
them  of  the  men  of  God.  It  failed  because  the  class  in  revolt 
had  not  reached  the  stage  where  its  economic  and  social  eman- 
cipation was  possible.  Had  they  won  in  the  field,  what  would 
they  have  done  in  the  Council  Chamber  ?  Their  social  defeat 
would  only  have  been  delayed  a  few  years  from  their  sheer 
incapability  of  holding  their  gromid  in  economics.  Their 
insurrection  was  in  every  way  but  that  fully  justifiable. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  admit  that  the  terrible  manner  in 
which  the  rising  was  crushed  did  help  to  throw  back  the  social 
development  of  Germany,  and  this  was  still  further  crippled 
by  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  its  widespread  devastations. 
The  emancipation  of  the  serfs  of  Germany  was  hindered,  not 
hastened,  by  the  force  of  the  peasants  at  the  beginning  and  the 
greater  force  of  the  nobles  at  the  end.  Yet,  convinced  as  we 
may  be  of  this  law  of  unseen  economic  advance  in  all  Western 
communities,  that  anticipation  of  social  events  by  armed  action 
cannot  give  freedom  to  the  class  whose  members  have  not  been 
prepared  for  the  transformation  by  changes  irrespective  of  their 
volition  or  consciousness,  nevertheless  we  cannot  withhold  our 
sympathy  and  admiration  from  these  uneducated  and  untrained 
champions  of  the  people  who,  in  England,  France,  Germany  and 
other  countries,  kept  alive,  by  their  courage  and  self-sacrifice, 
the  aspirations  of  mankind  towards  liberty  in  days  of  misery 
and  despair.  Their  defeats  made  ready  the  road  to  complete 
victory  generations  or  centuries  after  they  themselves  had  been 
slaughtered. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  ENGLISH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION 

There  is  no  part  of  English  history  which  has  been  regarded 
with  more  satisfaction  by  the  middle  class  of  our  day  than 
the  great  Ci\dl  War  against  Charles  I.  The  whole  tiling  is 
so  stirring,  so  thorough-going,  so  complete,  so  orbicular.  It 
has,  moreover,  that  comforting  savour  of  godliness  about  it 
which  sanctifies  victory  and  almost  justifies  massacre.  Man, 
wrote  James  Mill,  made  God  in  his  own  image.  Never  was  this 
done  more  agreeably  to  the  worshippers  calling  stoutly  upon 
Providence  to  help  them,  than  by  the  grim  fighters  who,  on  land 
and  on  sea,  in  England  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  made  all 
their  enemies  flee  before  them.  Their  God  was  unquestionably 
the  God  of  Battles;  and  liis  special  representatives  on  earth 
hewed  the  Agag  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  pieces  before  the 
Lord  with  truly  Hebraic  unction.  "  You  English,"  said  Karl 
Marx  once  to  me,  "  like  the  Romans  in  many  things,  are  most 
like  them  in  your  ignorance  of  your  own  history." 

The  history  of  the  real  revolution  of  the  seventeenth  century 
m  Great  Britain  has  been  written,  as  a  rule,  so  exclusively  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  Parliament,  that  few  give  thought  to  the 
condition  of  the  mass  of  the  people  during  the  struggle  between 
the  Commons — that  is,  the  middle  classes — and  the  King.  The 
whole  story  from  the  side  of  the  victorious  class  has  been  told 
so  often  and  so  well  that  there  is  no  need  even  to  summarise  it 
here.  Charles  I.  mistook  his  period  and  failed  to  recognise  the 
strength  of  his  opponents.  Moreover,  he,  like  his  father,  had 
a  God  of  his  own,  who,  he  was  convinced,  was  on  the  side  of 
divine  right,  ordained  and  sanctified  from  on  high.  There  were, 
in  fact,  two  Gkxis  as  well  as  two  armies  in  the  field.  This  being 
so,  he  felt  it  unnecessary  to  turn  for  support  to  the  people,  as 
at  times  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  did,  even  when  they  were 
butchering  vagrants  wholesale  and  looking  on  at  the  extrusion 
of  tillers  from  the  land.  His  claim  to  autocracy  was  so  surely 
based  that  the  dexterous  popularity-hunting  of  the  Tudors  was 
213 


214  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

out  of  date.  This  would  not  have  changed  the  result  in  the  long 
run  ;  but  had  the  advice  of  Wentworth  been  taken  in  the  matter 
of  a  standing  army,  and  the  landless  men  been  propitiated  by 
promises  of  better  treatment,  the  conflict  might  have  lasted 
many  more  years. 

Here,  however,  obviously,  the  class  which  was  socially  ready 
to  assert  its  right  to  increasing  control  secured  practically  all 
that  it  strove  for  in  the  department  of  finance  and  economics, 
not  so  much  by  its  victories  in  the  field,  remarkable  as  those 
were,  or  by  its  intellectual  superiority,  as  by  the  relentless 
pressure  of  historic  causes.  In  spite  of  Cromwell's  despotic 
action,  by  which  at  the  close  of  his  career  he  set  aside  all  the 
parliamentary  freedoms  he  had  previously  upheld,  and  estab- 
lished military  domination  with  a  standing  army  and  its  generals 
much  after  the  fashion  recommended  by  Strafford  to  his 
sovereign ;  notwithstanding  the  restoration  of  the  Stuart 
dynasty  under  Charles  II.,  and  its  continuance  under  James  II. 
and  Mary,  with  her  husband  William  of  Orange,  the  middle 
class  lost  nothing  that  it  had  gained  by  the  stalwart  fanaticism 
of  the  highly  respectable,  if  sometimes  hypocritically  ascetic 
Puritans.  From  "  the  crowning  mercy  "  of  Worcester  onwards, 
the  merchant,  the  banker,  the  trader,  the  capitalist  farmer 
steadily  made  way.  Not  until  the  middle  and  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  did  this  progress  manifest  itself  in  the 
acquisition  of  virtually  complete  political  control.  But  from 
1680  to  1914  capitalism  gradually  became  master  of  English 
policy  at  home  and  abroad.  The  aristocracy  and  the  land- 
owners, though  dexterously  maintaining  their  rights  and  their 
political  influence,  only  did  so  by  slowly  becoming  sleeping 
partners  with  the  owners  of  capital  in  their  exploitation  of  the 
masses  of  the  working  people. 

The  growth  of  this  powerful  profiteering  class  during  the 
seventeenth  century  in  England  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
features  of  European  history.  There  was  nothing  at  first  to 
show  that  this  country  would  gain  the  position  in  world  com- 
merce which  it  shortly  afterwards  did,  nor  could  anyone  have 
predicted  a  century  later  that  it  would  for  a  time  lead  the  world 
in  capitalist  production.  Other  countries  seemed  more  ad- 
vanced than  England.  The  Netherlands,  and  France  especially, 
whose  power  of  colonisation  preceded  and  surpassed  the  English 


ENGLISH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     215 

adventurers,  seemed  more  likely  to  succeed,  while  Spain's  decline 
was  not  so  manifest  as  it  shortly  afterwards  became.  Strange 
as  it  may  appear,  the  ruui  of  the  mass  of  the  people  helped  on 
the  development  of  the  wealthy.  Cromwell  himself,  repeating 
Seneca  without  knowing  it,  exclaimed  against  the  few  rich  who 
made  many  poor.  But  once  begun,  the  process  was  bound  to 
continue  its  work  to  the  end. 

Under  the  rule  of  the  Tudors,  as  has  been  seen,  England 
changed  from  a  country  where  in  the  main  the  majority  lived 
on  their  own  land,  were  happy,  contented,  well-fed  and  well- 
clothed,  producing  and  working  up  enough  food  and  raw 
material  for  their  own  use  and  thinking  little  of  exchange,  into  a 
country  where  people  were  gradually  being  driven  off  the  soil, 
their  ancient  rights  destroyed,  their  means  of  production  and 
their  land  taken  by  others — a  country  where  exchange  for  profit 
was  becoming  the  rule  of  the  time.  A  propertyless  people,  com- 
pelled to  work  for  the  farmer's  profit,  or  forced  to  compete  with 
one  another  in  the  cities  for  wages  to  keep  body  and  soul  together, 
was  replacing  to  a  large  extent  the  sturdy  yeomen,  craftsmen  and 
free  labourers  of  the  old  days.  Pauperism  became  an  integral 
portion  of  the  English  social  system,  and  the  lot  of  the  many 
one  never-ending  servitude  under  the  guise  of  freedom.  In  these 
days  the  origin  of  the  degrading  division  of  labour  and  the 
monotony  of  our  long  mechanical  toil,  so  scathingly  denounced 
by  Adam  Smith,  are  to  be  found.  Meanwhile  farmers,  traders, 
and  manufacturers  grew  wealthy,  and  the  name  of  England 
was  made  great  in  Europe :  the  foundations  of  her  commercial 
preponderance  and  naval  supremacy  were  laid. 

The  change  in  the  method  of  production,  though  still  in  its 
infancy  during  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was 
of  the  highest  importance.  Instead  of  the  isolated  labourer  on 
the  land  or  in  the  workshop  there  were  henceforth  an  increasing 
number  of  wage-earners,  without  any  means  of  tilling  or  pro- 
ducing by  themselves,  toiling  under  one  employer  who  himself 
owned  the  means  of  production  and  took  the  whole  product  as  his 
property.  This,  cruel  as  were  its  effects  upon  the  majority  of 
the  workers,  was  a  necessary  step  towards  bringing  about  the 
full  institution  of  that  social  labour,  divorced  from  the  owner- 
ship of  its  owTi  tools,  which  is  essential  to  all  wage-earning  pro- 
duction on  a  large  scale.    But  it  shuts  out  more  and  more  from 


216  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

the  workman  the  chance  which  he  had  before  of  becoming  a 
master  craftsman  and  an  employer  himself,  while  the  depriva- 
tion of  ownership  of  the  soil  brings  about  the  same  result  for 
the  labourer  on  the  land.  Both  now  work  for  the  profit  of  a  class 
above  them  and  economically  antagonistic  to  them.  For  the 
business  of  agriculture,  like  the  business  of  manufacture,  is  now 
carried  on  by  persons  of  capital  (Statute  43,  Elizabeth). 

The  capitalist  becomes  one,  not  because  he  is  an  organiser  of 
labour — the  Roman  villicus  was  no  capitalist— but  he  grows  into 
an  organiser  of  labour  because  he  is  a  capitalist,  and  wishes  to 
make  his  capital  fructify  by  means  of  profit.  Hence  the  ten- 
dency, very  slow  at  first,  more  rapid  afterwards,  to  increase  the 
scale  of  operations,  the  size  of  workshops,  the  number  of  men 
employed  by  one  master, and, consequently, the  amount  of  capital 
needed  to  start  on  good  terms  with  others,  to  build  workrooms, 
to  purchase  raw  materials,  etc.  A  radical  change  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  work  done  takes  place  by  dividing  the  labour  into 
sections  and  splitting  up  the  trades.  It  is  no  longer  merely  an 
extension  of  the  simple  handicraft  of  the  Middle  Ages,  bringing 
more  workers  together ;  it  is  a  direct  attack  upon  the  whole 
local  arrangements  and  restrictions  of  the  old  time.  Commerce 
first,  and  then  manufactures,  greatly  increased  by  the  influx 
of  foreign  capitalists  and  highly  skilled  labourers,  combined 
with  aggression,  exploration,  slavery  and  piracy  to  give  England 
her  initial  advantages  in  the  competition  for  wealth  for  the 
trading  and  capitalist  class  which  followed.  Usury  laws,  pro- 
tective duties,  monopolies,  interference  by  the  State  on  behalf 
of  the  workpeople  in  their  "  free  contract  "  with  the  dominant 
master-class  were  the  expiring  efforts  of  the  fading  Middle  Age 
polity  to  cope  with  the  capitalist  growth,  national  and  inter- 
national, and  to  prevent  it  from  benefiting  one  class  alone. 
They  had  little  permanent  effect  against  the  purely  pecuniary  and 
personal  struggle  of  the  rising  class  against  the  working  people. 

All  this  change  did,  in  fact,  turn  to  the  advantage  of  one  class 
and  one  class  alone.  And  the  enormous  improvements  which 
were  going  on  in  every  department  at  the  same  time  told  steadily 
in  favour  of  the  same  class.  There  never  was  such  a  period  of 
rapid  transformation  before,  through  all  the  long  annals  of 
mankind.  In  agriculture  and  in  trade,  in  arts,  mechanics, 
chemistry,  in  every  branch  of  science,  in  banking,  commercial 


ENGLISH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION    217 

organisation,  shipping,  navigation,  colonies,  fisheries — in  all  of 
these  steps  forward  were  taken,  exceeding  far  in  importance 
any  advances  that  had  been  made  for  hundreds  and  even 
thousands  of  years.  The  benefits  of  these  inventions,  dis- 
coveries, expansions  and  transformations  fell  exclusively  into 
the  hands  of  the  few ;  while  the  misery  of  the  people  was  such 
that  their  numbers  had  actually  decreased  during  this  time  of 
superabundant  prosperity.  A  slight  change  for  the  better  set 
in  later,  owing  to  the  growth  of  the  towns  tlirough  this  increase 
of  manufacture  and  trade,  which  created  a  demand  for  more 
cereals,  raised  the  price  of  corn,  rendered  tillage  more  profitable 
and  reduced  the  sheep  demesnes  within  reasonable  limits, 
causing  a  demand  for  more  agricultural  labourers ;  while  the 
introduction  of  the  turnip  husbandry  and  artificial  grasses  gave 
at  the  same  time  a  great  stimulus  to  agriculture  generally.  But 
the  mischief  had  been  done,  so  far  as  the  people  were  concerned, 
and  there  was  no  improvement  in  the  position  of  the  workers  in 
town  or  country  at  all  comparable  with  the  wealth  which  had 
been  piled  up  for  the  minority. 

Throughout  the  seventeenth  century  the  status  of  the  labourer 
was  bad  in  every  respect.  His  cottage  was  wretched  and  had 
no  land  around  it ;  the  price  of  food  had  risen  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  his  increase  of  wages  in  town  and  country  aUke.  In  1622 
the  rural  districts  were  described  as  "  pitifully  pestered  with  poor 
and  lusty  labourers,  who,  because  no  man  would  be  troubled 
with  their  service,  begged,  filched  and  stole  for  maintenance." 
Sir  Matthew  Hale,  whom  Cromwell  appointed  to  try  to  intro- 
duce some  sort  of  order  into  chaotic  law,  confirms  this  nearly 
forty  years  later,  after  the  complete  defeat  of  the  Royalist  party. 
He  wTites  :  "  There  are  many  poor  who  are  able  to  work  if  they 
have  it  at  reasonable  wages,  by  which  they  could  support 
themselves  and  their  family  which  oftentimes  are  many."  In 
the  preamble  to  Statute  13,  Charles  II.,  cap.  12,  the  growing 
necessities,  number  and  continual  increase  of  the  poor  are  dwelt 
upon.  This  was  in  1662.  Five  and  thirty  years  later  one  half 
of  the  people  relieved  under  the  Poor  Law  were  able-bodied, 
and  might  easily  have  maintained  themselves  if  they  had  got 
any  useful  work  to  do.  But  that  is  precisely  what  they  could 
not  obtain.  They  could  not  obtain  remunerative  employment, 
that  is  to  say,  either  under  Charles  1.,  Cromwell  or  Charles  II., 


218  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

although  England  as  a  whole  was  becoming  richer  and  richer. 
This  wealth  was  accumulated  in  the  hands  of  a  small  minority 
of  the  population.  "  The  trade  of  the  world,"  of  which  the 
founder  of  English  political  economy  wrote,  was  pouring  its 
profits  into  their  lap,  and  the  socialised  method  of  production 
under  capitalism  was  being  prepared  and  carried  on.  This  covild 
only  find  a  satisfactory  outlet  in  such  a  world  market,  especi- 
ally since  the  difficulty  of  transport,  owing  to  the  breakdown  of 
roads,  restricted  the  home  market  for  bulky  goods,  which  could 
much  more  easily  and  cheaply  be  conveyed  by  sea. 

Here  then,  if  the  poverty  of  the  poor  contrasted  cruelly  with 
the  increased  wealth  of  the  rich,  if  the  inability  to  obtain  em- 
ployment even  at  a  barely  living  rate  of  wages,  if  the  depriva- 
tion of  the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  ownership  of  their  own  soil, 
if  the  great  and  bitter  discontent  prevailing  in  town  and  country 
— if  all  these  causes  were  by  themselves  adequate  to  create  a 
revolution,  unquestionably  our  revolution  of  the  seventeenth 
century  would  have  come  from  the  working  and  not  from  the 
trading  or  bourgeois  class.  But  this,  of  course,  was  not  the 
case.  The  revolution  sprang  from  those  who  were  not  only 
well-to-do,  but  were  increasing  year  by  year  in  prosperity. 

Moreover,  whatever  gloss  middle-class  historians  put  upon 
it,  the  fact  remains  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  fine  sentiments  with 
which  it  was  garnished,  the  great  struggle  of  the  Parliament 
against  the  King  was  a  pecuniary  conflict.  The  bourgeoisie 
was  touched  in  its  most  sensitive  place — its  pocket.  The  King 
and  his  counsellors,  vainly  imagining  that  the  regal  authority, 
built  up  into  little  short  of  despotism  by  the  Tudors,  might  be 
stretched  to  an  indefinite  length,  were  foolish  enough  to  tax  the 
strongest  economic  class  in  the  kingdom,  without  going  through 
the  proper  constitutional  forms.  It  was  a  fatal  mistake.  The 
Royalists  altogether  failed  to  understand  that  they  were  acting 
in  opposition  to  an  inevitable  social  transformation.  So  the 
god  of  the  monarchy,  with  its  semi-Catholic  Anglicanism,  fell 
before  the  god  of  the  purse,  with  its  individualist  Puritanism. 
But  the  condition  of  the  people  went  relatively  from  bad  to  worse 
below,  throughout  the  whole  period  of  disturbance.  During  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  the  common  folk  came  largely  by  their  own  ; 
during  the  wars  of  King  and  Parliament  they  gained  nothing 
whatever.     They  showed  their  feeling  towards  both  sides,  where 


ENGLISH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION      219 

they  could,  by  impartially  clubbing  to  death  on  the  field  of  battle 
Royalists  and  Parliamentarians  indiscriminately. 

We  can  scarcely  blame  them.  Both  sides  were  their  enemies. 
A  political  and  economic  struggle  above,  however  bloody,  party 
writing,  however  eloquent — and  who  will  ever  forget  the  noble 
pamphlet  on  the  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing — affect  not  at 
all  the  relentless  economical  pressure  upon  the  producing  class 
below.  Let  those  who  will  talk  of  freedom  of  speech,  freedom 
of  person,  freedom  of  contract ;  what  are  all  these  mock  liberties 
worth  to  those  who  have  but  the  freedom  to  work  as  wage  slaves 
their  life  long,  to  starve  with  their  families  or  to  turn  paupers  ? 
What  do  the  names  of  Milton  or  Marvell,  Eliot,  Hampden,  Vane, 
Fairfax  or  Cromwell  mean  to  the  poor  bowed-down  hind,  or  city 
wage-earner,  forced  by  the  economical  ordinances  of  his  time  to 
stumble  along,  half  clothed  and  half  fed,  from  his  pauper  cradle 
to  his  pauper  grave  ?  History  is  regardless  of  him,  the  political 
economist  or  statesman  passes  him  by  on  the  other  side,  whilst 
the  misery  of  yesterday  furnishes  forth  the  misery  of  to-day,  and 
the  dispossessed  vagrants  of  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts  hand  on 
their  heritage  of  suffering  to  the  hopeless  proletariat  of  the 
next  generation. 

The  Tudors  had  established  in  Great  Britain  during  a  period 
of  transition  a  system  of  monarchical  rule  not  widely  different 
from  that  which  Richelieu  and  Mazarin  created  for  the  kings  of 
France,  though  the  economic  conditions  below  were  not  on  the 
same  plane  at  all.  That  was  the  point  at  which  Charles  and  his 
admirers  blundered ;  there  arose  the  opportunity  which  gave 
the  Parhamentary  leaders  and  Cromwell,  both  before  and  after 
the  decapitation  of  the  King,  their  power.  Some  of  those 
leaders  were  genuine  Republicans  of  an  ohgarchic  type ;  others 
honestly  beUeved  that  the  class  to  which  they  belonged  had  all 
the  wisdom  and  piety  in  the  island ;  others,  again,  like  Ireton 
and  his  fellow  lawyer-generals,  were  democrats  in  their  way. 
But  not  one  of  them,  nor  all  of  them  together,  could  hold  their 
o\vn  against  the  curiously  complex,  crafty  and  ruthless  char- 
acter which  lay  behind  the  fanaticism  of  Cromwell.  He  was 
able  to  gratify  his  ambition  and  determination  to  be  master 
of  them  all  because,  in  direct  contradiction  to  what  he  said  of 
himself,  he  knew  quite  early  in  his  career  of  self-aggrandisement 
where  he  was  going  and  how  he  would  get  there.     Cromwell 


220  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

never  at  any  time  had  any  scruples  whatever.  If  he  thought  it 
politically  judicious  to  massacre,  he  massacred.  If  he  believed 
that  for  the  time  being  it  was  to  his  interest  to  play  the  part  of 
the  whole-souled  Parliamentarian,  he  played  it.  If  he  felt  that 
to  encourage  doctrines  of  equality  among  his  soldiery  would 
bind  them  more  closely  to  him,  he  was  as  thorough-going  a 
Fifth-Monarchy  man  as  the  most  raving  enthusiast  in  his  army. 
If  he  found,  on  the  contrary,  that  this  sort  of  militarist  fanaticism 
might  be  dangerous  to  himself,  he  dealt  sternly  enough  with  his 
devotees  of  yesterday.  From  the  moment  he  discovered  that 
none  of  his  possible  rivals  possessed  the  politico-warlike  qualities 
that  were  combined  in  his  person,  he  threw  overboard  every 
opinion  and  was  false  to  every  pledge  that  might  encumber 
him  in  his  upward  climb. 

His  execution  of  the  King,  who,  assuredly,  well  deserved  his 
fate,  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  blunder.  It  was  nothing  of 
the  kind.  Foreign  statesmen  made  no  mistake  on  that  head. 
They  understood  from  that  moment  that  Cromwell,  so  long  as 
he  lived,  was  the  only  man  in  England  with  whom  they  had 
to  reckon.  Brutal  and  merciless  as  he  was,  butchering  his 
thousands  at  Drogheda  and  Wexford,  dooming  his  prisoners  to 
slow  starvation,  and  transportation  to  frightful  slavery  in  the 
West  Indies,  after  his  victories  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester,  Crom- 
well was  always  the  thorough  representative  of  the  English  well- 
to-do  landowning,  farming  and  profiteering  class.  Sympathy 
with  democracy  and  freedom  he  had  none.  That  the  labourers 
should  be  on  terms  of  equality  with  landowners  and  farmers  was 
to  him  an  outrageous  proposition.  So  the  revolution  of  the  class 
to  which  he  belonged  was  carried  through  entirely  in  the  interest 
of  that  class ;  and  the  rule  that  victory  is  for  the  class  whose 
triumph  has  been  economically  prepared  beforehand,  by  a  series 
of  historic  events,  was  once  more  verified  in  this  great  conflict. 

But  a  section  of  those  Englishmen  who  overthrew  the 
monarchy  resented  the  high-handed  methods  of  the  Parliament 
and  the  tyranny  of  Cromwell  as  much  as  they  did  the  ecclesi- 
astical ruffianism,  the  Star  Chamber  atrocities  and  the  irre- 
sponsible tax-gathering  of  Charles.  Their  grand  resistance  to 
illegality  and  injustice  has  been  for  the  most  part  passed  over 
with  contemptuous  indifference  by  English  historians.  The 
militarists  were  successful,  so  their  crimes  are  carefully  belittled  ; 


ENGLISH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     221 

while  the  heroic  actions  of  John  Lilburne,  Wildman,  Overton, 
Saxby  and  their  friends  of  "  The  Agreement  of  the  People  "  and 
"  England's  New  Chains,"  have  been  sneered  at,  or  the  record 
of  their  works  and  trials  suppressed.  Yet  there  is  no  finer  char- 
acter in  English  history  than  Colonel  John  Lilburne.  Unjustly 
and  inhumanly  condemned  to  degrading  punishments  by  the 
persecuting  Anglican  bigots  under  the  Monarchy,  every  possible 
effort  was  made  to  secure  his  legal  condemnation  to  death  under 
the  Republic.  A  large  bench  of  judges  was  specially  constituted 
in  order  to  ensure  a  verdict  against  him ;  he  was  refused  the 
right  to  employ  counsel.  When  completely  exhausted  by  his 
endeavours  to  prevent  the  bench  from  depriving  him  of  all 
chance  of  a  favourable  verdict  by  their  legal  chicane,  he  was 
forced  to  make  his  defence  then  and  there.  Constantly  inter- 
rupted and  brow-beaten  by  the  suborned  bench  tliroughout, 
his  speech  was  as  fine  both  legally  and  oratorically  as  any  ever 
delivered  from  the  dock.  This  was  in  1649,  when  England  was 
supposed  to  be  living  under  the  rule  of  justice  and  freedom. 
Lilburne's  sole  and  only  offence  was  that  he  had  vigorously  and 
unceasingly  upheld  English  liberties,  as  decreed  by  the  House  of 
Commons  and  recorded  on  the  Statute  Book.  In  spite  of  all  the 
indecent  efforts  of  his  judges  to  force  the  jury  to  convict  him 
and  thus  bring  him  to  the  gallows,  the  jurjonen  one  and  all 
found  him  "  Not  Guilty  "  on  all  counts  of  the  indictment  charged 
and  enforced  against  him  by  the  Attorney-General,  with  the 
relentless  prosecution  conducted  from  the  Bench. 

This  verdict  was  really  far  more  important  than  the  acquittal 
of  the  Seven  Bishops  under  James  II.  It  was  acclaimed  by  the 
audience  in  court  Avith  such  fervour  that  the  unjust  judges  were 
in  the  utmost  terror,  and  evidently  feared  that  they  might  not 
escape  with  their  lives.  All  London  echoed  with  cheering  when 
the  result  was  known.  No  wonder.  Lilburne  was  tried  for  his 
hfe,  under  the  circumstances  recomited,  simply  and  solely  be- 
cause he  and  his  associates  demanded  that  the  discredited  Parlia- 
ment should  at  once  be  dissolved,  that  the  elections  to  the  House 
of  Commons  should  take  place  once  in  two  years,  that  all  male 
tax-payers  should  have  the  vote,  and  that  the  great  discrepancies 
in  voting  strength  should  be  remedied.  It  was,  in  short,  an 
advanced  political  reform  programme.  But  there  were  other 
proposals  of  the  so-called  "  Levellers,"  with  whom  General 
Ireton  liimself  sympatliised  and  even  co-operated,  which  tended 


222  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

to  reduce  also  not  only  political  but  property  inequalities. 
These  were  the  measures  which  infuriated  Parliament  and 
evoked  the  denunciations  of  Cromwell,  whose  ambitions  to  attain 
despotic  power  Lilburne  had  been  the  first  to  detect  and  warn 
his  countrymen  against.  It  was  evident,  from  the  military 
mutinies  in  many  districts,  that  a  large  portion  of  the  army  was 
favourable  to  the  programme  of  the  Levellers  and  quite  ready 
to  support  an  organised  movement  for  genuine  political  and 
social  reform.  But  their  expressions  of  dissatisfaction  were 
crushed  by  Cromwell,  who  saw  in  the  disciplined  Levellers  his 
most  formidable  opponents. 

Thus  the  discontent  of  the  mass  of  the  people  counted  for 
nothing  and  the  protests  of  the  soldiery  were  of  no  avail. 
Lilburne  himself  after  his  acquittal  was  not  even  released, 
as  according  to  all  law  and  justice  he  ought  to  have  been. 
He  was  taken  back  to  the  Tower  under  a  strong  armed  guard 
and  for  years  afterwards  was  harassed  by  constant  persecution. 

His  career,  and  that  of  the  men  who  worked  with  him, 
affords  fair  proof  that  the  bourgeois  heroes  of  the  anti- 
monarchical  conflict,  when  once  they  felt  themselves  strong 
enough,  cared  as  little  about  the  freedom  for  which  they  nomin- 
ally fought  as  the  Royalists  themselves.  Having  secured  these 
particular  liberties  which  benefited  themselves  and  asserted 
their  economic  mastery,  the  well-being  and  fair  represent- 
tion  of  the  rest  of  the  community  so  little  concerned  them  that 
they  resorted  to  the  most  shameful  means  in  order  to  prevent 
the  really  oppressed  class  from  obtaining  a  hearing.  The 
English  bourgeoisie  had  won  its  great  revolution  and  from  this 
time  forward,  whatsoever  king  did  reign,  they  were  determined 
to  maintain  their  predominance.  They,  whose  descendants  talk 
so  glibly  against  the  idea  of  a  class  war  between  the  people 
and  themselves,  and  deprecate  any  resort  to  force,  were  the  first 
traders  in  Europe  to  persuade  a  monarch,  judicially,  to  part 
from  his  head.  The  superficial  political  revolution  of  1688  was 
of  little  importance  compared  with  the  real  revolution  forty  years 
earlier.  Charles  II.  and  the  long  roll  of  foreign  monarchs  who 
succeeded  him  have  been  careful  not  to  run  counter  to  the 
interests  of  the  English  middle  class,  who  thenceforth  were,  in 
the  main,  masters  of  English  policy  at  home  and  abroad.  Not, 
however,  until  some  two  hundred  years  after  did  they  achieve 
acknowledged  political  domination.    So  slowly  do  events  move. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION 

From  the  rising  of  the  Jacquerie  in  1358  to  the  calling  together 
of  the  National  Assembly  in  1789,  France  had  passed  through 
the  development  of  her  social  system,  from  a  congeries  of  great 
and  small  more  or  less  independent  feudal  territories,  to  France 
as  a  nation  under  one  autocratic  monarch.  A  succession  of 
civil  and  religious  wars  kept  the  country  in  never-ending  tur- 
moil, until  a  great  central  organisation  in  Paris,  with  the  King 
at  its  head,  arose  out  of  the  long  struggle  between  the  Crown  and 
the  nobility.  Louis  XL,  Henry  IV.,  Richelieu  and  Mazarin 
prepared  the  way  for  the  virtual  despotism  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
Louis  XV.  But  during  the  whole  of  the  four  hundred  and  forty 
years  which  separated  the  days  of  Etienne  Marcel  and  Charles 
the  Bad  from  the  time  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Robespierre — a 
period  longer  than  that  covered  by  the  Roman  Empire  in  its 
strength — agriculture  had  imdergone  little  change,  and  the 
position  of  the  peasantry  remained  much  what  it  had  been. 
Although  the  more  rigorous  forms  of  serfdom  had  slowly  fallen 
into  desuetude,  production  on  the  land  remained,  as  it  had  been 
for  thousands  of  years,  the  most  important  industry. 

The  Court  and  the  aristocracy  had  meanwhile  lost  touch 
with  the  mass  of  the  people.  There  had  been  no  meeting  of  the 
States  General  for  more  than  five  whole  generations  (1613-1789). 
Instead  of  feudal  lords  living  upon  their  estates  and  fulfil- 
ling, however  badly,  their  legal  fimctions  in  the  society  of 
the  epoch,  the  great  landowners  had  for  the  most  part  become 
mere  hangers-on  of  the  Court,  participating  in  its  waste  and 
extravagance,  and  employing  agents  and  bailiffs  on  the  spot  to 
exact  from  the  peasant  tenantry  the  last  farthing  in  the  way  of 
dues.  Their  own  continuous  impoverishment  rendered  them 
the  harshest  of  landlords  from  a  distance;  while  their  continuous 
absenteeism,  dra\\dng  away  the  substance  of  the  people  from 
the  provinces  to  the  metropolis,  not  only  destroyed  aU  direct 
223 


224  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

personal  relations  between  the  nobility  and  the  people  on  their 
estates,  but  intensified  the  economic  drawbacks  of  a  system  that 
was  rapidly  falling  into  decay  from  other  causes. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  over  the  greater  part  of  France. 
Where  the  landlords  still  resided  upon  their  properties,  as  in  La 
Vendee  and  districts  of  Southern  France,  both  the  economic  posi- 
tion and  the  social  relations  were  less  strained,  as  was  apparent 
even  in  the  worst  crises  of  the  Revolution.  But  during  the  latter 
portion  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  the  whole  of  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV.,  matters  went  steadily  from  bad  to  worse  for  the  bulk 
of  the  peasantry.  A  few  of  the  cultivators  improved  their 
status,  and  the  middle  class  was  strengthening  its  position  in  the 
cities,  towns  and  communes.  But  the  mass  of  the  agriculturists 
became  poorer  and  poorer  ;  land  was  actually  going  out  of  cul- 
tivation to  an  extent  which  in  numerous  districts  meant  ruin 
for  Government  and  people  alike  ;  many  of  the  poverty-stricken 
semi-serfs,  compelled  to  abandon  their  holdings,  tramped  in 
misery  along  the  highways  and  sought  refuge  in  the  towns  ; 
while,  in  the  period  immediately  preceding  the  crucial  years 
from  1784  to  1789,  a  series  of  bad  harvests  desolated  France  and 
brought  actual  famine  to  the  poor  both  in  country  and  town. 

At  the  same  time,  the  public  debt  had  swollen  to  enormous 
proportions,  and  the  deficit  in  the  annual  budget  of  the  Govern- 
ment increased  year  by  year  :  a  debt  which  there  was  no  means 
whatever  of  reducing,  and  a  deficit  which  could  not  possibly  be 
avoided  under  the  legal  system  of  taxation  then  in  vogue.  For 
the  middle  class,  who  acquired  their  money  by  trade  and  money- 
lending,  and  the  impoverished  tillers  of  the  soil,  bore  the  whole 
burden  of  the  national  imposts.  The  nobility  and  the  clergy, 
who,  between  them,  held  practically  the  whole  of  the  landed 
property  of  France,  were  entirely  exempted  from  taxation,  and 
the  lawyers,  a  most  powerful  social  group,  then  as  ever,  under 
the  domination  of  private  property,  also  escaped  taxation  very 
frequently. 

Such  a  method  of  government  as  that  of  the  ancien  regime, 
going  on  under  these  conditions  from  generation  to  generation, 
must  sooner  or  later  break  down.  Economic  and  social  causes 
work  slowly  forward  to  their  inevitable  end,  regardless  of  the 
persons  engaged  in  consciously  or  unconsciously  aiding  or  ob- 
structing their  development.     Threatened  classes  rarely  foresee, 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     225 

or,  if  a  few  foresee,  they  are  unable  to  meet  circumstances  by  the 
prompt  and  capable  legislation  which  can  alone  preserve  them- 
selves from  overthrow.  This  was  certainly  the  case  with  the 
nobility  and  landowners  generally  before  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. There  were  warnings  all  round  that  dangerous  move- 
ments were  inevitable,  unless  strong  measures  were  promptly 
taken  to  meet  the  growing  demands  and  resentment  of  the 
Tiers  Etat,  the  rising  middle  class,  and  the  formidable  upheavals 
of  the  neglected  and  despised  Fourth  Estate — the  peasants. 
The  long  and  increasingly  serious  succession  of  peasant  insurrec- 
tions, from  the  early  days  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.,  though 
superficially  they  seemed  merely  an  exaggerated  form  of  the 
local  revolts  against  oppression  which  had  been  going  on  for 
many  centuries,  were,  for  careful  observers  from  abroad,  clear 
evidence  that  this  almost  universal  outbreak  might  easily  de- 
velop into  definite  social  revolution.  Subversive  ideas  filtering 
down  from  above,  and  the  reflex  action  of  this  continuous  and 
furious  material  unrest  going  on  below,  made  ready  the  whole 
social  structure  for  a  complete  change.  It  might  even  have 
appeared  that  the  manifest  intention  of  the  peasants  to  obtain 
entirely  new  conditions  of  existence  would  secure  for  them,  as 
by  far  the  most  numerous  and  important  portion  of  the 
population,  the  dominant  influence,  when  the  Revolution  itself 
should  be  the  outcome  of  their  spasmodic  attacks. 

But,  as  even  historians  and  essayists  who  most  sympathise 
with  the  just  claims  of  the  toiling  agriculturists  now  freely  admit, 
this  could  not  be.  Why  ?  Because,  unlike  the  Tiers  Etat,  the 
peasants  were  not  ready  as  a  class  to  take  up  their  historic  role 
of  emancipation.  They  knew  what  they  wanted  to  get  rid  of, 
but  they  were  not  competent  to  administer  the  new  forms  which 
would  reflect  their  own  economic  supremacy,  should  they  succeed 
in  obtaining  it.  As  will  be  seen,  therefore,  they  succeeded 
wholly  in  the  destructive,  but  only  partially  in  the  constructive, 
side  of  such  policy  as  they  formulated.  The  Tiers  Etat,  or 
bourgeoisie,  on  the  other  hand,  though  they  also  may  not  have 
laid  down  consciously  a  complete  plan  of  action  in  the  event  of 
success,  did  understand  perfectly  well  that  administration  in 
their  own  interest  must  inevitably  follow  legislation  in  their  own 
interest.  They  had  arrived  at  the  stage  where  they  could  easily 
fill  all  the  posts  then  occupied  by  the  nobility  and  the  King's 


226  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

nominees ;  and  they  never  forgot  that,  when  they  had  secured 
full  possession  of  private  property,  and  equality  so  far  as  the 
right  to  compete  freely  without  any  embarrassing  restrictions, 
they  had  virtually  won  all  that  they  most  desired  to  win. 

This  accounts  first  for  the  extraordinary  moderation  of  the 
bourgeoisie  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Revolution,  when  once  they 
had  made  themselves  the  indispensable  leaders  of  the  National 
Assembly,  and  posed  as  voicing  the  national  aspirations.  It 
accounts  also  for  the  determination,  and  even  fury,  with  which 
they  attacked  the  peasantry  when  these,  to  the  bourgeoisie, 
misguided  and  ignorant  folk,  threatened  to  shake  the  founda- 
tions of  private  property  altogether  by  destroying  the  chateaux, 
burning  public  documents,  sweeping  away  all  feudal  dues  of 
every  kind,  resuming  the  communal  lands  seized  by  the  nobility, 
and  dividing  up  the  Church  lands.  The  Revolution  to  them 
meant  simply  the  conquest  of  political  and  economic  power 
directly  or  indirectly  by  the  Tiers  Etat.  "  What  is  the  Tiers 
Etat  ?  "  asked  the  Abbe  Sieyes.  "  Nothing."  "  What  should 
it  be  ?  "  "  Everything."  That  summed  up  all  the  law  and 
all  the  prophets  for  the  French  bourgeoisie. 

Below  the  fine  phrases  of  the  French  revolutionary  orators 
and  the  high  ideals  with  which  some  of  them  were  inspired,  we 
come  always  upon  the  sordid  considerations  of  hard  cash. 
From  the  very  commencement,  with  only  one  or  two  aristocratic 
exceptions,  the  real  leaders  of  the  National  Assembly  and  the 
Revolution  were  members  of  the  Tiers  Etat.  They  were  in  the 
grip  of  middle-class  ideals.  Mirabeau,  Danton,  Robespierre, 
the  Girondins,  the  whole  of  the  principal  orators  and  organisers, 
with  the  exception  of  Marat,  Anarcharsis  Clootz  and  Chaumette, 
Le  Roux,  L'Ange,  and  later  Baboeuf,  were  tight  bound  in  the 
trammels  of  bourgeois  thought  and  private  property  concep- 
tions. The  peasantry,  who  constituted  the  bulk  of  the  popula- 
tion, were  not  directly  represented  in  the  National  Assembly  at 
all,  and  indirectly  only  to  a  very  small  and  inefficient  extent. 
The  same  with  the  artisans  and  men  driven  from  the  land  into 
the  towns.  These  people  exercised  great  pressure  from  without 
through  the  Commune  of  Paris,  and  other  friendly  and  partially 
affiliated  communes  throughout  the  country.  But  it  was  only 
by  such  pressure,  and  by  very  threatening  attacks  from  the 
peasants  under  arms,  that  the  factions  in  the  National  Assembly 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     227 

were  driven  to  enforce  the  practical  measures  passed  by  their 
own  Assembly.  These  measm-es  were  accompanied  by  such 
restrictions,  m  the  shape  of  heavy  cash  payments  by  the 
peasantry  in  return  for  the  removal  of  the  old  feudal  abuses  and 
tyrannies,  that  the  enactments  themselves  were  mainly  rendered 
nugatory.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  National  Assembly  itself 
passed  law  after  law  extending  these  restrictions,  and  insisting 
that  the  peasants  should  pay  the  feudal  dues  claimed  and  per- 
form customary  work.  More  than  this,  when  the  peasants  took 
the  enforcement  of  the  original  vote  of  the  Assembly  into  their 
own  hands,  attacked  the  chateaux,  endeavoured  to  seize  and 
burn  the  feudal  titles  in  the  commwnal  and  municipal  archives, 
and  refused  to  let  the  agents  of  the  landlords  collect  money  from 
them  or  extort  services  from  them,  the  bourgeoisie  actually  took 
up  arms  against  them  as  "  brigands."  The  peasants  were, 
then,  not  citizens  who  were  asserting  their  rights,  as  unanim- 
ously voted  in  1789  by  the  Assembly,  but  gangs  of  robbers  who 
desired  to  interfere  with  those  sacred  rights  of  private  property 
which  were  as  dear  to  the  Tiers  Etat  as  to  the  privileged  classes. 
Naturally  enough,  the  peasants  refused  to  accept  frequent 
defeats,  and  even  multitudinous  hangings  and  torturings,  as 
decisive ;  and  the  true  revolutionists  of  Paris,  Lyons,  Marseilles 
and  other  to^vns  sympathised  with  them  and  used  their  influence 
to  support  their  revolts.  It  is,  in  fact,  beyond  all  question  that, 
though  the  National  Assembly  at  first  voted  with  immense  en- 
thusiasm for  doing  away  root  and  branch  with  the  entire  feudal 
system,  the  same  Assembly  at  once  set  to  work  to  pass  laws  in 
direct  contravention  of  their  own  resolution.  The  following 
dates  show  what  occurred. 

On  4th  August  1789  the  abolition  of  the  entire  feudal  system 
was  joyfully  and  unanimously  voted  in  principle  by  the  Assembly ; 
while  at  the  same  time  mortmain,  the  game  laws — which  were 
very  onerous — and  private  seigneurial  courts  of  justice  were 
abrogated.  These  were  immense  reforms,  which  meant  a  great 
and  pacific  revolution  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  agricultural 
population. 

But,  at  the  end  of  1789  and  the  beginning  of  1790,  laws  were 
passed  by  the  same  Assembly  which  reconstituted  and  con- 
firmed nearly  all  the  old  abuses,  and  decreed  that  any  advantages 
accruing  to  the  peasants  by  the  vote  of  4th  August  should  be 


228  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

fully  paid  for  by  them,  to  the  landowners,  at  their  value  in 
money. 

Peasants  who  refused  to  accept  this  law  andCwould  not  pay 
for  the  removal  of  injustice  were  treated  again  as  malefactors, 
and  were  harried  by  the  forces  of  the  municipalities.  If  they 
rose  in  revolt  against  this  improper  action  they  were  treated 
legally  with  little  short  of  the  same  brutality  and  cruelty  as 
had  been  the  lot  of  their  ancestors  for  thousands  of  years. 

The  Feudal  Commission  appointed  by  the  Assembly  did  all 
that  was  possible  to  compel  the  peasants  to  pay  their  old  feudal 
dues.  Things  became  worse  rather  than  better.  More  and 
more  the  reactionists  harried  the  peasantry  with  stringent 
enactments ;  more  and  more  the  peasantry  retaliated  against 
their  oppressors,  doing  their  utmost  to  crush  their  enemies  in 
successive  risings. 

Not  until  four  full  years  had  passed  since  the  first  declaration 
of  the  annulment  of  the  feudal  rights  and  customs  did  the  com- 
plete defeat  of  all  the  reactionary  forces  in  Paris  and  other 
important  towns  cause  these  feudal  iniquities  to  be  swept  away 
without  redemption  and  without  any  possibility  of  resuscitation. 
But  for  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy  and  its  supporters, 
including  the  eloquent  but  reactionary  Girondins,  the  final  re- 
moval of  a  system  which,  as  all  can  now  see,  had  long  outlasted 
its  period  of  even  partial  usefulness,  might  have  dragged  on  for 
some  years  more. 

It  is  well  to  understand  thoroughly  this  portion  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement,  because  apologists  for  the  ancien  regime, 
and  bitter  opponents  of  the  French  Revolution  in  every  shape, 
carefully  overlook  the  many  efforts  made  by  the  reactionaries 
of  various  kinds  to  restrict  the  application  of  all  real  peaceable 
reforms,  and  to  change  the  old  method  as  little  as  possible.  It 
was  this  persistent  policy  of  counter-revolution,  working  steadily 
on,  openly  in  the  Assembly  and  the  clubs,  secretly  in  the  under- 
ground coteries,  which  exasperated  all  who  desired  to  bring 
about  thorough-going  changes  and  drove  them  to  extreme 
courses.  For  the  object  of  the  Court  and  its  agents  and 
sympathisers  was  to  prevent  the  execution  of  measures  already 
accepted,  as  well  as  to  arrest  the  course  of  inevitable  change. 

The  time  was  fully  ripe  for  three  great  transformations  :  the 
passing  of  economic  and  political  power  to  the  Tiers  Etat  and 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     229 

the  bourgeoisie,  the  destruction  of  the  old  feudal  ties,  and  the 
transference  of  the  land  to  the  cultivators.  To  check  this 
revolution,  so  fully  and  unconsciously  prepared  in  the  course 
of  previous  centuries,  was  quite  impossible.  But  those  who 
opposed  its  development  naturally  forced  the  other  side  to  try 
for  more  than  was  then  economically  or  socially  attainable; 
and  these  efforts,  in  turn,  fortified  reaction,  and  finally  produced 
a  military  dictatorship. 

Nothing  but  the  actual  figures  of  taxation  and  impoverish- 
ment can  give  a  clear  conception  of  the  true  state  of  France  from 
the  accession  of  Louis  XVI.  onwards.  That  some  districts 
were  better  off  than  others,  being  favoured  in  the  matter  of  fiscal 
imposts,  is  well  known.  In  these  areas  a  fair  amount  of  pros- 
perity might  be  observed  generally,  even  among  the  smallest 
proprietors,  accompanied  by  that  sprightly  demeanour  and 
ob\dous  enjoyment  of  life  which  distinguish  the  majority  of  the 
French  people,  when  once  freed  from  grinding  anxiety,  excessive 
toil  and  continuous  hardship.  It  is  also  true  that  a  few  of  the 
peasantry  themselves,  throughout  the  provinces,  had  succeeded 
in  rising  above  the  level  of  their  fellows,  just  as  some  of  the  slaves 
of  old  time  became  even  rich  under  still  more  arduous  condi- 
tions for  the  mass  of  the  slave  class,  or  as  wage-earners  have  been 
able,  occasionally,  to  acquire  wealth  and  become  capitalists.  But 
these  were  exceptional  cases ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  very  men 
who  had  thus  partially  emancipated  themselves  were  those  who 
were  most  active  in  leading  their  fellow-peasants  to  attack'^and 
destroy  the  old  oppressive  feudal  system. 

The  general  taxation,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  was  extorted 
by  the  farmers-general  of  the  revenue,  constituted  by  itself  a 
crushing  burden,  apart  from  the  feudal  dues  and  servitudes. 
So  excessive  was  the  weight  of  this  taxation  upon  the  agricul- 
turists that,  in  districts  where  the  valuation  was  strictly  made, 
and  the  payments  were  rigorously  exacted,  assuming  the  pro- 
duce of  an  acre  to  be  worth  £3,  2s.  7d.,  the  proportion  which  went 
to  the  Crown  was  £1, 18s.  4d.,  the  landlord  took  18s.,  the  actual 
cultivator  being  left  with  only  5s.  Or  if  the  land  were  culti- 
vated by  the  peasant  owner  himself,  his  share  was  only  £l,  4s.  3d., 
while  the  Crown  still  took  £1,  18s.  4d.  Thus,  if  the  produce  of  an 
acre  had  been  divided  into  twelve  parts,  nearly  seven  and  a 
half  of  such  parts  went  to  the  Crown,  three  and  a  half  to  the 


230  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

landowner  and  only  one  to  the  actual  cultivator.  The  iaille 
and  the  vingtieme  imposts — affecting  agricultural  labour  ex- 
clusively and  rising  in  proportion  to  its  returns — with  other 
smaller  burdens  amounted  to  £6,840.000  a  year.  The  taxes 
on  consumption  amounted  to  £10,400,000  a  year.  Hence  the 
small  proprietors,  who  had  practically  no  appeal  against  such 
crushing  imposts,  since  the  intendants  and  the  courts  of  justice 
were  all  at  the  disposal  of  the  Crown,  had  been  compelled 
in  several  departments  to  abandon  their  tillage  altogether ; 
and,  as  already  noted,  to  crowd  propertyless  into  the  large  and 
small  towns,  with  no  means  of  subsistence  save  what  they  could 
gain  by  selling  their  labour  power  to  the  rising  middle  class. 

It  has  been  stated  on  good  authority  that,  in  some  provinces, 
more  than  half  the  land  was  derelict,  owing  to  the  impossibility 
of  paying  the  taxes  and  dues,  and  leaving  any  margin  to  support 
the  cultivator  and  his  family.  Miserably  poor,  with  little  hope 
of  bettering  their  lot — such  was  the  constitution  of  the  mass  of 
the  French  people.  The  social  relations  were  as  harsh  as  the 
economic.  The  absentee  nobles  hanging  round  the  Court  still 
regarded  their  tenants,  in  most  provinces,  as  mere  beasts  of 
burden,  whose  sole  right  to  existence  consisted  in  supplying 
their  lords  and  masters  with  the  means  of  elegant  waste :  the 
peasants  looked  upon  the  King's  tax-gatherers,  and  also  the 
landowners  with  their  agents  and  bailiffs,  as  men  who  directly 
and  brutally  robbed  them  of  the  fruits  of  their  labour — in  short, 
as  blood-suckers  of  the  foulest  type,  ever  ready  to  resort  to 
tyranny  and  torture  when  payments  fell  due  and  were  not  dis- 
charged. This  feeling  the  unfortunate  tillers  of  the  soil  took 
with  them  into  the  towns,  when  stress  of  circumstances  and 
actual  famine  drove  them  starving  from  their  fields  and  huts ; 
and  it  was  their  furious  resentment  and  lust  for  vengeance  which 
largely  accounted  for  the  ferocity  displayed.  There  is  no  need 
to  imagine  special  breeds  of  murderers  deliberately  imported 
from  without  for  purposes  of  massacre  in  Paris  and  other  great 
cities.  Plenty  of  men  and  women  fired  with  justifiable  hatred 
were  already  on  the  spot.  In  the  country,  natiu-ally,  the  class 
animosity  was  quite  as  bitter.  The  peasants  were  getting  power, 
but  bad  harvests  brought  famine ;  their  worst  enemies  were 
close  at  hand  in  the  persons  of  the  agents  of  their  landowner  and 
in  the  chateaux,  which  the  latter  rarely  visited,  though  his  game 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION  231 

ravaged  their  fields  and  ruined  their  crops.  Consequently, 
abominable  as  were  the  communications,  utterly  uneducated  as 
were  the  mass  of  the  people,  impossible  as  was  any  thoroughly 
centralised  organisation  for  the  specific  purposes  of  revolt, 
ignorant  as  nearly  all  the  districts  and  communes  were  of  what 
was  occurring  in  the  metropolis,  the  indisputable  truth  remains 
that,  though  the  peasants  were  destitute  of  arms,  the  same  causes 
produced  similar  effects,  and  resulted  in  the  like  attacks  upon 
the  nobility  over  nearly  the  whole  of  France.  Nothing  but  a 
mass  of  serious  and  unendurable  economic  and  social  oppres- 
sions could  have  produced  discontent  so  general  and  hatred  so 
implacable. 

But  this  same  discontent  and  hatred  could  not  of  themselves 
have  brought  about  the  Revolution,  had  not  the  entire  system 
been  worn  out.  In  the  early  days  of  Louis  XIV.,  for  example, 
though  there  were  bitter  grievances  at  the  beginning  of  his 
monarchy,  in  spite  of  capable  management  of  the  finances,  and 
even  in  the  latter  part  of  his  reign,  when  successful  and  un- 
successful wars  had  well-nigh  ruined  the  entire  country,  such  a 
movement  could  not  have  been  carried  on  with  any  hope  of 
victory.  The  old  forms,  economic,  social,  political  and  religious, 
were  still  effective,  and  seemed  permanent  for  the  mass  of  the 
people.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  greater  part  of  the  reign 
of  Louis  XV.  Upheaval  was  possible,  revolts  were  frequent, 
but  the  monarchy  and  nobility  still  stood  firm.  Nor  when,  as 
we  can  now  see,  everything  was  ready  for  a  great  change  did 
the  most  capable  French  observers  really  anticipate  what  soon 
afterwards  occurred.  So  advanced  and  shrewd  a  man  as  the 
Socialist  Abb^  Mably  said,  only  five  years  before  the  fall  of 
the  Bastille :  "  The  revolution  will  never  come." 

Nothing,  also,  could  have  been  more  moderate  than  the  de- 
mands in  the  list  of  grievances  set  forth  by  the  peasantry  from 
the  various  provinces.  In  this  moderation  they  followed  the 
example  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The  King  was  actually  popular, 
and  was  looked  to  as  the  source  of  reforms  against  the  nobles. 
A  careful  study  of  the  rise  and  spread  of  the  revolutionary  spirit 
shows  clearly  that,  determined  as  the  Tiers  Etat  was  to  assert 
itself,  when  once  the  political  outlet  was  opened  which  had  been 
closed  for  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  years,  the  mass  of  the 
people  had  httle  idea  of  their  own  power :  so  little  that  a  powerful 


232  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

monarch  or  a  bold  statesman  might  have  brought  about,  peace- 
fully and  effectively,  greater  and  more  beneficial  changes  than 
those  which  the  eight  years  of  revolutionary  turmoil  eventually 
secured.  But  this  has,  hitherto,  been  the  invariable  course  of 
events  in  European  movements,  political  and  social,  successful 
and  unsuccessful ;  the  dominant  minority  has  never  been  able 
to  meet  inevitable  developments  with  sagacity  and  courage. 
"  Nous  etions  des  laches,"  replied  one  of  the  aristocratic 
emigrants  at  Coblenz,  to  a  friend  who  asked  him  why  they  had 
failed  to  stay  the  revolutionary  current  and  direct  it  into  fertil- 
ising channels.  And  this  was  true.  Not  that  the  nobles  were 
physical  cowards.  They  and  their  womenkind  showed  mar- 
vellous personal  intrepidity  throughout,  under  circumstances 
where  temporary  breakdown  might  have  been  excusable.  But 
moral  cowards  they  unquestionably  were.  They  dared  not, 
like  the  Daimios  and  Samurai  of  Japan,  recognise  that  they  had 
outlived  their  epoch  and  lead  their  countrymen  at  what  ap- 
peared great  personal  sacrifice  into  the  inevitable  new  period. 
They  fell,  not  because  they  and  the  Court  were  extravagant, 
wasteful,  lascivious,  corrupt  and  cruel.  They  had  been  all 
this  for  generations.  Their  overthrow  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  and  their  feudalism  had  become  useless. 

But  the  same  could  not  be  said  of  the  King.  At  the  com- 
mencement of  his  reign,  when  advised  by  Turgot  and  Male- 
sherbes,  and  before  he  fell  under  the  complete  domination  of 
the  fatal  foreign  woman,  Marie  Antoinette,  Louis  XVI.  dis- 
played most  of  the  qualities  which  our  Charles  I.  had  so  wholly 
lacked.  It  may  have  been  too  late,  as  some  say,  to  begin  the 
removal  of  feudal  rights  in  1774-1776,  but,  quite  clearly,  the 
people  did  not  think  so.  Opposed  by  the  Parliament  of  land- 
lords in  his  support  of  Turgot's  measures  for  suppressing  feudal 
abuses,  the  King,  incensed  at  this  selfish  conduct  and  the  similar 
policy  pursued  by  the  merchants,  took  the  strong  course  of 
enacting  definite  edicts  against  the  corvie  and  other  wrongs 
inflicted  of  old  upon  the  people,  in  a  Lit  de  Justice  of  12th 
March  1776.  The  opposition  to  the  King's  removal  of  this 
"barbarous  slavery  ruinous  to  the  country-side"  made  Vol- 
taire's "  old  blood  boil  in  his  old  veins  " ;  and  he  spoke  of  the 
King's  Lit  de  Justice  as  "  /e  lit  de  hienfaisance.''  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  wrote  in  similar  terms,  declaring  that  the  resistance  of 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     233 

tlie  Parliament  to  the  admirable  reforms  proposed  by  MM. 
Turgot  and  Malesherbes  was  more  scandalous  than  the  most 
ferocious  whim  of  despotism.  Paris  itself  was  widely  illumin- 
ated by  transparencies,  proclaiming  "  Vive  le  roi  et  la  liberty." 
The  people  in  toAVTi  and  country  went  wild  with  delight  when 
the  news  got  round,  and  a  few  excesses  were  seized  upon  as 
evidence  of  the  malign  effect  of  all  reform  on  the  masses. 

Two  months  later,  on  the  12th  May  1776,  the  King,  weakly  giv- 
ing way  to  the  cabals  of  the  nobility,  and  to  the  malefic  influence 
of  his  wife,  dismissed  Turgot  from  the  Court,  Malesherbes  having 
resigned  before.  Voltaire  was  dumbfounded  at  this  victory  of 
reaction.  He  wrote  :  "  France  would  have  been  too  fortunate. 
These  two  ministers  united  together  would  have  performed 
miracles.  I  shall  never  console  myself  for  having  seen  the  birth 
and  the  death  of  the  golden  age  which  they  were  preparing  for 
us."  They  came  full  butt  up  against  all  the  vested  interests 
and  time-hallowed  prejudices  of  their  age — only  thirteen  years 
before  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution — and  were  defeated  by 
the  greed  and  bigotry  of  the  nobles,  the  rich  men  of  the  Tiers 
Etat  and  the  Queen.  Galiani's  letter  to  Madame  d'Epinay, 
quoted  by  M.  Rocquain,  sums  up  the  situation  :  "  We  have 
arrived  at  the  days  of  which  Liyy  speaks  :  '  Such  a  period  are 
we  in  that  we  can  neither  endure  our  ills  nor  their  remedies.'  " 

It  is  well  to  remember,  when  we  are  shocked  at  the  horrors  of 
the  Revolution,  thus  rendered  certain  by  the  madness  of  the  re- 
actionists and  the  weakness  of  the  King,  that  the  French  peasants 
and  workmen,  the  lower  bourgeoisie  and  artisans,  had  long  been 
systematically  cheated  and  betrayed  in  the  matter  of  reforms,  be- 
fore they  were  driven  to  resort  to  armed  revolution.  Louis  XVI. 
had  to  choose  between  a  domestic  coup  d'etat  in  his  house, 
followed  by  a  direct  alliance  of  the  Crown  with  the  mass  of  the 
people,  or  a  surrender  to  foreign  petticoat  government  and  the 
uncontrolled  domination  of  his  worthless  aristocracy.  He  made 
his  choice  and  lost  his  head.  From  1776  to  1789  were  years  of 
preparation  for  popular  action,  the  full  force  of  which,  as  said, 
was  not  understood  even  by  the  Tiers  Etat  and  the  people 
themselves.  From  the  downfall  of  Turgot  and  Malesherbes, 
however,  onwards,  the  Crown  had  really  the  sole  option :  se 
soumettre  on  se  demettre — to  submit  or  resign.  When  the  King 
apparently  submitted  he  once  more  had  the  people  with  him  ; 


234  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

when  he  persisted  in  lying  and  intriguing,  the  guillotine  stood 
ready  at  his  door.  But  his  death  and  the  removal  of  so  many 
rich  and  poor  citizens  by  the  Red,  and  so  very  many  more  by 
the  White  Terror,  were,  when  all  is  said,  not  strietly  important 
incidents,  regrettable  though  they  were,  in  the  great  class  war, 
which  terminated  in  the  economic  and  political  victory  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  The  actual  loss  of  life  on  both  sides  was  quite 
trifling  compared  with  that  during  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and 
still  less  noteworthy  than  the  butchery  during  the  recent  tre- 
mendous clash  of  arms.  But,  what  is  worth  serious  considera- 
tion at  the  present  time  is  the  fact  that  the  Tiers  Etat,  or 
bourgeoisie,  in  France  and  in  other  countries,  which  was  so  blood- 
thirsty and  relentless  in  pursuit  of  its  own  emancipation  and 
dominance  when  once  it  obtained  the  mastery,  preached 
assiduously  peace,  perfect  peace,  as  the  only  justifiable  method 
of  obtaining  any  reforms  for  the  disinherited  class  below, 
which  constituted  the  bullc  of  the  population.  This  is  a  very 
convenient,  if  hypocritical,  form  of  pacifism. 

But  what  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  population,  the 
peasants  of  the  country  and  the  poor  of  the  towns,  eventually 
gained  was  acquired  with  great  difficulty  and  at  serious  risk. 
After  the  first  burst  of  revolutionary  fervour,  reaction,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  made  way  steadily.  Not  only  did  the  King  and 
the  Court,  Lafayette  and  the  leaders  of  the  wealthy  middle 
class,  with  the  Girondins,  turn  against  the  people,  but  the 
invading  Austrian  and  Prussian  forces,  encouraged  from  the 
Tuileries,  and  even  from  the  Assembly  itself,  made  sure  that 
they  would  capture  the  French  metropolis,  relieve  the  French 
King  from  the  control  of  his  subjects,  slaughter  all  the  Jacobins 
and  revolutionists  generally,  and  restore  the  ancien  regime.  No 
reliance  whatever  could  be  placed  upon  the  Assembly.  The 
situation  was  most  threatening  at  home  and  from  without. 
Marat,  whose  character  and  conduct  were  first  seriously  de- 
fended by  Bax,  and  a  study  of  whose  writings  convinced  Jaures 
that  this  remarkable  man  had  been  shamefully  traduced — 
even  Marat,  who  had  never  lost  heart  in  the  most  desperate 
situation,  was  in  despair.  Before  the  10th  August  1792  he 
seriously  thought  of  leaving  Paris,  where  he  had  been  hunted 
about  for  several  months.  Yet  the  10th  August  was  the  critical 
day  of  the  whole  Revolution.     Had  not  the  Commune  of  Paris 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     235 

taken  up  the  leadership  of  the  people  agamst  the  Court  and  the 
Convention,  it  is  ahnost  eertain  that  reaction  would  have  won, 
temporarily  at  least.  But  the  butchery  of  the  half-armed 
populace  by  the  royal  troops,  the  clear  evidence  of  the  growing 
strength  and  organisation  of  the  monarchical  party,  the  news 
from  the  eastern  front  of  constant  treachery  by  the  chiefs  of 
the  old  army,  the  wholesale  devastation  of  territory  carried  on 
by  the  invading  German- Austrian  armies,  roused  once  again  the 
real  revolutionary  enthusiasm  of  1789 — and  more. 

How  the  French  survived  the  desperate  struggles  between  the 
grooving  strength  of  reaction  and  the  reawakened  zeal  of  the 
revolutionists,  the  counter-revolutionary  risings  in  Lyons,  Bor- 
deaux and  other  cities,  the  terrific  war  of  reprisals  and  exter- 
mination in  La  Vendue,  where  the  greater  part  of  the  peasantry 
fought  for  Church  and  King,  and  were  massacred  wholesale  by 
the  revolutionists,  the  triumphant  advance  of  the  allied  armies 
till  checked  at  Valmy  and  Wattignies,  the  lack  of  funds  to 
maintain  the  Republican  forces  and  want  of  arms  to  equip  them 
against  the  enemy  from  without  and  the  royalist  and  bourgeois 
foes  within — how  the  French  nation  continued  to  live  through 
this  terrible  stress  and  strain  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  that  extra- 
ordinary period.  But  \vith  the  collapse  of  the  monarchical 
resistance  on  10th  August,  and  the  imprisonment  of  the  royal 
family,  a  new  spirit  seems  to  have  been  breathed  into  the  genuine 
Republican  party.  Through  anarchy  and  upheaval  the  revolu- 
tionists fought  on  in  the  field  and  in  the  Assembly,  until,  in  spite 
of  the  machinations  of  the  Girondins  and  their  middle-class 
supporters,  they  passed  the  great  democratic  constitution  of 
24th  June  1793,  which  swept  away  finally  and  without  com- 
pensation all  the  feudal  claims,  put  an  end  to  the  monarchy,  and 
placed  power  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  This  was  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  whole  Revolution.  Little  was  done  after- 
wards. The  excesses  of  the  revolutionists  in  the  provinces 
after  their  victories,  the  reign  of  terror  in  Paris  itself,  the  furious 
personal  animosities  of  the  factions,  the  failure  of  the  men  in 
control  to  develop  any  high  national  policy  of  construction  which 
the  whole  nation  could  grasp — all  this  played  into  the  hands 
of  those  of  the  bourgeoisie  who  had  made  large  fortunes  out  of 
the  purchase  of  public  lands  with  the  issue  of  huge  masses  of 
paper  money,  and  thus  fortified  the  elements  of  disgust  and 


236  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

reaction  in  every  way.  With  the  fall  of  Robespierre  and  his 
friends  on  the  9th  of  Thermidor,  these  anti-revolutionary 
forces  controlled  by  the  well-to-do  class,  who  feared  nothing  so 
much  as  the  shock  to  private  property — a  feeling  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  manifested  itself  very  early  in  the  Revolution — came 
into  control  and  avenged  themselves  upon  their  enemies.  Then, 
being  incapable  of  mastering  the  military  element,  or  of  develop- 
ing, in  their  turn,  any  clear  and  comprehensive  poHcy,  or  even 
suppressing  the  active  disappointment  of  a  deluded  people,  they 
fell  under  the  domination  of  a  powerful  military  genius,  who 
saved  them  their  property  at  the  expense  of  their  liberty.  But 
Napoleon  himself,  and  the  monarchist  rulers  of  the  old  Bourbon 
family  who  followed  him,  could  not  put  back  the  clock  upon  the 
dial  of  social  development. 

What  the  peasantry  had  gained  they,  in  the  main,  kept.  Even 
at  the  height  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  monarchical  power 
imposed  upon  France  by  the  Allies  in  1814  and  1815,  it  was 
impossible  to  recover  for  the  dispossessed  landowners  a 
portion  of  the  lost  reUcs  of  serfdom  and  aristocratic  privileges 
that  had  been  abrogated  in  1793.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that 
the  relief  from  the  intolerable  oppression  of  belated  feudalism 
enabled  France,  rural  France — ^which  is,  when  all  is  said,  the 
real  France — ^to  develop  resources  and  produce  agricultural 
wealth  to  an  extent  which  astonished  Europe.  This  it  was 
which  enabled  her  armies  first  to  withstand  and  repel  invasion, 
and  then  to  sweep  forward  as  conquerors  on  a  mission  which 
began  as  a  revolutionary  movement,  proceeded  as  a  succession 
of  campaigns  to  obtain  Imperial  domination,  and  ended  in 
favour  of  the  kingship  that  had  been  so  tragically  dethroned. 

But  the  peasants,  whose  stupendous  toil  and  sacrifice 
gave  France,  by  their  labour  at  home  and  their  prowess  in  the 
field,  the  first]  position  in  Europe,  gained  in  the  long  run  no 
complete  emancipation  from  their  penal  servitude  on  the  soil. 
Taxes  and  local  dues  still  pressed  hard  upon  them.  The  land 
is  ever  a  hard  task-master ;  and  the  antagonism  between  country 
and  town  is  based,  under  the  city  rule  of  the  middle  class,  upon 
a  permanent  clash  of  interests.  Small  owners,  such  as  constitute 
the  majority  of  the  population  of  France,  have,  save  under  ex- 
ceptional circumstances,  all  the  drawbacks  which  result  from 
agricultural  tillage  conducted  at  a  mechanical  disadvantage. 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     237 

Overworked,  parsimonious,  conservative  and  at  times  reaction- 
ary, the  small  cultivators,  with  all  their  counterbalancing^good 
qualities,  have  acted  as  a  drag  upon  French  progress  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years.  Not  for  eighty  years  was  even  a  bour- 
geois republic  definitely  established.  The  French  Revolution, 
as  is  now  admitted  even  by  its  most  strenuous  applauders, 
secured  but  a  small  portion  of  those  freedoms  which  its  leaders 
and  followers  claimed  for  the  mass  of  the  people ;  nor  has  it 
fully  succeeded  in  doing  so  up  to  this  day. 

For,  over  against  the  masses  of  the  cultivators,  determined  to 
rid  themselves  of  the  feudal  dues  and  servitudes  at  any  cost, 
and  resolved  to  obtain  possession  of  the  land,  but  seeing  no 
further  into  the  economic  future  than  those  two  immediate 
reforms,  stood  the  French  bourgeoisie.  This  was  the  only  class 
which  was  ready  by  education,  organisation,  knowledge  of 
business  and  administrative  training  to  take  up  and  carry  on  the 
public  services,  to  develop  and  extend  the  great  money  power, 
to  substitute  the  pecuniary  rule  of  the  bankers,  merchants, 
traders,  capitalists,  lawyers  and  professions  generally  for  the 
personal  domination  of  the  feudal  nobility  and  the  landowners. 
They  were  out  to  make  a  revolution  for  the  most  selfish  and 
sordid  reasons.  The  object  was  not  to  gain  freedom  for  all, 
but  freedom  for  their  own  mastery  of  all  the  rest.  Never  in 
human  history  were  great  ideals  prostituted  to  baser  ends. 
"  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity  "  is  the  glorious  motto  still  in- 
scribed on  the  buildings  and  banners  of  the  French  Republic. 
But  what  did  those  noble  abstractions  mean  to  the  class  triumph- 
ant in  the  French  Revolution,  the  class  whose  members  were  its 
leaders  throughout  ?  Liberty  to  exploit  by  wage  slavery  and 
usury.  Equality  before  laws  enacted  in  the  interest  of  the 
profiteers,  and  justice  administered  in  accordance  with  their 
profiteering  notions  of  fair  play.  Fraternity  as  a  genial 
brotherhood  of  pecuniary  exploitation.  "  The  Rights  of  Man  " 
deliberately  perverted  to  the  right  to  plunder  under  forms  of 
equity. 

Thus  were  the  noble  conceptions  of  high-minded  idealists 
translated  into  the  language  of  sordid  capitalist  life.  But  the 
real  meaning  of  these  fine  words,  under  a  higher  system  of 
society,  still  remains,  behind  their  misapplication  of  yesterday 
and  to-day.     This  some  of  the  revolutionists,  who  were  never- 


238  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

theless  devoted  to  private  property,  saw  dimly,  and  the  Com- 
munists of  the  period  plainly  proclaimed.  There  can  be  no 
social  equality,  that  is  to  say,  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  : 
no  real  equality  between  the  full  man  and  the  fasting.  There 
can  be  no  liberty  unless  an  ample  supply  of  all  necessaries  and 
luxuries  of  life  is  permanently  secured  by  light  labour  for 
all.  There  can  be  no  fraternity  where  one  class  is  able  to  squeeze 
unpaid  labour  out  of  the  wage-earners,  who  possess  nothing  but 
their  labour  power  to  sell.  It  was  the  Communists,  such  as 
BabcEuf,  preaching  these  doctrines,  whom  the  Republicans 
specially  hated  and  finally  shamefully  guillotined.  Their  views, 
unrealisable  as  they  were  at  the  time,  drove  the  whole  set  of 
profiteers  headlong  into  the  arms  of  reaction.  Property  was 
the  one  God  of  the  middle-class  leaders  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Their  first  names  were  classical,  instead  of  Biblical,  as 
with  the  English  upsetters  of  the  monarchy ;  but  they  wor- 
shipped Mammon  with  more  whole-hearted  assiduity  than  the 
Puritans  and  slaughtered  Communists  with  far  greater  fervour 
than  the  Cromwellians  dispatched  Levellers.  The  views  of 
Morelly,  Mably,  Le  Roux,  L'Ange,  Chaumette  and  others  were 
premature  in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution.  But  they 
only  anticipated  events.  Their  theories,  not  those  of  Rousseau 
and  Marat,  inspired  men  of  action  like  the  whole-souled  and 
self-sacrificing  hero,  Blanqui,  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
more  developed  Communism  of  Fourier  and  the  encyclopaedic 
elaborations  of  the  great  St  Simon. 

Evolution,  in  the  sociologic  sense,  was  not  understood,  as  we 
understand  it,  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Some  still  thought  that 
it  was  possible  to  go  back  to  the  golden  age  of  the  past,  where 
the  domination  of  gold  was  unknown,  instead  of,  as  St  Simon 
truly  said,  to  the  golden  age  of  the  future,  where  the  fetishism  of 
gold  will  be  finally  dethroned,  and  wealth  will  be  communally 
appropriated  and  distributed  for  the  benefit  of  each  and  all. 
It  is  the  fashion,  nowadays,  to  speak  of  all  such  as  Utopian 
socialists  :  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  gibe  at  the  great  Roger 
Bacon  as  a  Utopian  scientist.  When  Fourier  declared,  in  1825, 
that  competition  would  inevitably  find  its  logical  term  in  mon- 
opoly: when,  in  1802,  Robert  Owen  stated  that  wealth,  even 
with  the  powers  then  possessed  by  society,  might  easily  be  made 
as  plentiful  as  water,  if  men  would  but  combine  and  overmaster 


FRENCH  BOURGEOIS  REVOLUTION     239 

the  great  machinery  of  production  which  controlled  them : 
when,  more  than  a  hundred  years  earlier  still,  John  Bellers 
pointed  out  that  money  frequently  acted  not  as  a  means  of  ex- 
change, but  as  a  malefic  hindrance  to  social  production,  by  the 
necessity  it  imposed,  in  a  society  where  exchange  was  dominant, 
of  converting  wares  into  cash — they  each  and  all  were  truly 
scientific  in  their  estimation  of  the  facts  of  their  period,  and 
displayed  a  marvellous  faculty  of  forecasting  the  future.  It  is 
easy  to  underrate  the  influence  which  such  intelligent  anticipa- 
tions have  had  during  the  last  century  upon  the  practical  efforts 
to  advance  into  the  new  period.  It  is  even  remarkable  that  the 
Communists,  who  advocated  "  direct  action  "  to  bring  about  the 
changes  which  they  desired  and  hoped  to  accomplish,  took  for 
granted,  in  their  survey  of  the  past,  that  man  in  society  began 
with  communism  all  over  the  world,  as  sociological  investiga- 
tions have  now  decided  that  he  did.  This  was  at  the  time  an 
almost  unverified  hypothesis ;  and  the  idea  of  the  "  social  con- 
tract," which  had  been  deliberately  outraged  by  the  power  of 
malice  aforethought,  was  purely  imaginary.  Nevertheless  such 
ideas  have  had  mdespread  attraction  for  active  agitators  all 
over  Europe,  and  in  France  have  inspired  many  conspiracies 
and  insurrections.  They  have  also  kept  burning,  in  the  heart 
of  the  proletariat  of  all  the  towns,  that  passionate  devotion  to 
democracy  and  equality  which  have  constituted  the  French, 
and  particularly  the  Parisians,  the  continuous  leaders  of  modem 
social  idealism.  Their  refusal  to  recognise  failure  or  to  accept 
defeat  have  been  of  incalculable  value  to  their  noble  and 
enduring  cause. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  FORERUNNERS  OF  FOR^TY-EIGHT 

Although  the  causes  of  the  French  Revolution  were  in  the 
main  material  and  economic,  and  the  influence  of  the  writings 
of  Voltaire,  Rousseau  and  others  upon  the  mass  of  the  people 
have  been  exaggerated,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  views  of 
Morelly,  Mably,  L'Ange,  Chaumette  and,  later,  Baboeuf  had 
an  important  effect  in  producing  the  sections  of  Communists, 
peaceful  and  forcible,  who  afterwards  were  prominent  in  French 
social  risings  and  conspiracies.  These  authors  and  agitators  do 
genuinely  come  under  the  head  of  Utopian  Socialists.  That  is 
to  say,  their  deification  of  man  as  a  degenerated  product  from 
what  the  eighteenth-century  deity,  Nature,  had  made  him  in 
the  beginning,  and  their  elaboration  of  a  human  society,  de- 
veloped not  from  historic  growth,  but  from  their  ethical  con- 
ceptions of  what  man  ought  to  be,  are,  in  their  essence,  ideals, 
and,  as  applied  to  the  conditions  of  their  day,  ideals  alone. 
They  believed  that  it  was  then  possible,  by  appeals  to  human 
sentiment  and  human  reason,  to  arrive  at  a  series  of  communal 
arrangements  which  would  supply  the  world  with  its  material 
needs,  and  thus  remove  all  the  chief  stimuli  to  crime.  Private 
property  would,  in  this  way,  be  replaced  by  collective  and 
communal  property ;  rapacious  individuals  and  predatory 
classes  would  ahke  disappear.  Convinced  of  the  natural  good- 
ness of  human  nature,  they  wished  to  remove  all  the  artificial 
surroundings  which  had  diverted  it  from  the  true  relationships 
that  should  subsist  among  mankind. 

The  first  and,  on  the  whole,  the  most  influential  of  these 
pleasing  theorists  was  Morelly.  His  principal  work  was  first 
published  in  1755,  or  thirteen  years  before  Rousseau's  Contrat 
Social.  It  was  entitled  Code  de  la  Nature  ou  le  Veritable  esprit 
de  Ses  Lois — de  tout  temps  neglige  ou  miconnu.  But  twelve 
years  before,  in  his  Essai  sur  VEsprit  Hwmain,  and  two  years 
afterwards,  in  1745,  in  his  Essai  sur  le  Cceur  Humain,  he  had 

240 


THE  FORERUNNERS  OF  FORTY-EIGHT    241 

analysed  human  passions  and  human  intelligence,  and  set  forth 
a  new  plan  of  education.  In  his  earliest  book  he  gives  two 
motives  of  the  intelligence :  "  the  desire  for  knowledge  and  the 
love  of  order."  His  Code  de  la  Nature  was  also  preceded  by  the 
Basiliade,  a  purely  fanciful  work,  which  he  claimed  to  have 
translated  from  the  Hindu  of  the  famous  Indian  fabulist,  Pilpay ; 
probably,  as  one  of  his  admirers  and  critics  says,  in  order  to 
avoid  the  ridicule  which  might  otherwise  have  been  evoked  by 
his  very  advanced  opinions.  The  Code  de  la  Nature  is  the  more 
formal  expression  of  the  semi-poetical  ideas  contained  in  the 
Basiliade.  To  give  anything  but  an  outline  of  Morelly's 
opinions  would  be  out  of  place  ;  but  it  is  certainly  not  fair  to 
think  of  him  as  a  mere  imitator  of  Plato  or  Sir  Thomas  More. 
His  sketches  of  what  might  be  done  in  the  way  of  economic 
reorganisation  and  education,  physical,  moral  and  intellectual, 
anticipated  Owen,  probably  influenced  St  Simon,  and  un- 
questionably acted  as  guides  to  Fourier,  in  his  proposals  for  the 
establishment  of  communal  phalansteries.  Were  it  possible 
to  pull  up  human  society  by  the  roots  and  transplant  it  into 
communal  cities,  Morelly's  plans  were  perhaps  as  good  as  any 
that  could  be  laid  down.  Moreover,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
his  supernal  admiration  for  Nature,  in  her  creation  and  adapta- 
tion of  man,  did  not  blind  him  to  the  defects  of  her  liandi- 
work,  when  modified  by  the  embruting  institution  of  private 
property,  which  Morelly  frankly  denounced  as  the  root  of  all 
evil.    And  he  was  a  harsh  judge. 

Those  who  were  not  prepared  to  work  under  Morelly's  com- 
munal associations  were  to  undergo  punishments  of  the  old 
familiar  kind,  until  they  could  appreciate  the  infinite  advantages 
of  brotherly  co-operation  in  the  provision  for  and  enjoyment 
of  life.  Thus  we  have  it  under  his  own  hand  that  "  anyone 
who  attempted  to  abrogate  the  sacred  laws  in  order  to  introduce 
detestable  private  property,  after  having  been  tried  and  con- 
demned by  the  supreme  senate,  shall  be  incarcerated  for  life  in 
a  dungeon  constructed  in  the  public  cemetery,  as  a  raving  mad- 
man and  an  enemy  of  society.  The  name  of  the  culprit  will  be 
for  ever  effaced  from  the  roll  of  citizens."  His  children  will  be 
brought  up  in  other  communities,  mthout,  however,  suffering 
in  any  way  for  the  sins  of  their  parent.  Adultery,  idleness  and 
other  trivial  offences  are  punished  in  various  ways.  In  fact, 
Q 


242  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Morelly's  designs  for  enforcing  the  fraternity  of  Coniniunism 
upon  the  recalcitrant  were  a  sort  of  mild  admixture  of  Incadom 
and  Bolshevism.  But  these  mistaken  suggestions  for  his  new 
world,  like  his  cut-and-dried  ideas  of  "  cities  "  not  exceeding 
one  thousand,  or  at  most  two  thousand,  inhabitants,  may  be 
passed  over  as  genial  aberrations.  Yet  the  objects  he  had 
in  view  as  the  essential  conditions  of  success  in  his  co- 
operative communities  have  since  been  considered  applicable 
on  a  much  wider  scale,  and  in  an  immensely  more  advanced 
society,  by  many  who  label  themselves  scientific  Socialists. 
The  human  mind,  in  this  as  in  some  other  cases — notably 
in  mathematics — seems  to  have  been  partially  anticipatory 
of  social  forms  still  to  be  reached  by  inevitable  human 
evolution.  It  is  well  to  repeat  that  these  previsions  were 
first  formulated  in  1745  and  given  definite  shape  in  1755,  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  years  ago,  forty-four  years  before  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille  and  the  commencement  of  the  French 
Revolution.     His  objects  were  : 

1.  To  maintain  the  indivisible  unity  of  the  resources  and 
of  the  common  domain. 

2.  To  establish  the  common  employment  of  the  instruments 
of  labour  and  the  productions  of  the  community. 

3.  To  distribute  work  according  to  capacity ;  products 
according  to  needs.  ("  From  each  according  to  his  ability,  to 
each  according  to  his  needs,"  is  the  anarchist-communist 
formula  of  to-day,  thus  first  put  in  words  by  Morelly.) 

4.  To  retain  around  the  "  city  "  sufficient  land  to  support 
the  families  who  live  in  it. 

5.  To  bring  together  a  thousand  persons  at  least,  in  order  that, 
each  working  in  proportion  to  his  power  and  capacity,  and  con- 
suming for  the  satisfaction  of  his  needs  and  tastes,  an  average 
of  consumption  may  be  set  on  foot,  for  a  sufficient  number  of 
individuals,  which  will  not  exceed  the  common  resources,  and 
an  output  from  labour  which  always  ensures  a  sufficient 
abundance. 

6.  To  give  talent  no  other  privilege  than  that  of  directing 
works  undertaken  in  the  common  interest,  and  to  take  no  account 
in  the  distribution  of  intelligence,  but  solely  of  needs  and  wants. 
These  exist  before  and  survive  after  capacity  itself  has  passed 
away. 


THE   FORERUNNERS  OF  FORTY-EIGHT    243 

7.  To  allow  no  pecuniary  remuneration  of  any  sort  or  kind. 

(a)  Because  capital  is  an  instrument  of  labour  which  must 

remain  wholly  at  the  disposition  and  in  the  hands  of 
the  administration. 

(b)  Because  all  money  payment  is  useless^  where  labour 

freely  exercised  ensures  a  variety  and  an  abundance 
of  products  greater  than  our  needs  ;  harmful  in  cases 
where  disposition  and  taste  did  not  suffice  for  all  useful 
fmictions ;  for  this  would  provide  individuals  with  a 
means  for  not  paying  their  debt  of  labour  and  relieving 
themselves  from  their  duties  to  society^  without  for- 
feiting the  rights  which  society  assures  to  them. 
Of  the  moral  results  which  would  accrue  to  all  members  of 
society  were  this  system  of  general  fraternal  co-operation  uni- 
versally applied,  Morelly  natiu*ally  writes  with  vigour  and  en- 
thusiasm.    He  rightly  assmnes  that  the  provision  of  wealth  for 
a  society  whose  members  all  shared  the  common  effort  of  produc- 
tion by  the  light  labour  of  all  would  be  perfectly  easy  even  with 
the  unscientific  methods  of  agriculture — ^their  most  important 
industry — ^then  prevaiUng.    In  1802,  nearly  sixty  years  later, 
Owen  made  his  famous  declaration  that  "  wealth  might  be 
made  as  plentiful  as  water  "  if  all  worked  moderately ;  and  he 
found  no  one  disposed  to  refute  him.     But  it  is  remarkable 
that  Morelly,  like  his  successor,  Owen,  considering  the  reorganisa- 
tion of  society  from  the  ethical  standpoint,  and  wishing  to  make 
human  animals  into  higlily  intelligent  and  noble  men,  should 
accept  the  economic  basis  as  the  inevitable  groundwork  of  his 
improved  society — ^Utopian  as  that  society  certainly  was  in  his 
setting  forth. 

It  is  not  surprising,  however,  that  humane  and  enthusiastic 
Frenchmen,  such  as  Chaumette  and  others  during  the  French 
Revolution,  and  Baboeuf,  Blanqui,  Raspail  and  many  after- 
wards, should  be  moved  to  attack  the  victorious  boiu-geoisie, 
who  did  their  utmost  to  prevent  Morelly's  ideas  from  taking 
practical  shape. 

These  ideas,  neglected,  except  at  first  (when  Le  Code  de  la 
Nature  was  ascribed  to  Diderot),  by  the  lettered  class,  had 
steadily  crept  in  among  the  people ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that 
truly  patriotic  revolutionists,  who  saw  how  Uttle  the  whole 
French  working  class   had  gained  by  the  Revolution  itself. 


244  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

should  have  resorted  to  forcible  eonspiracies  in  order  to  secure 
the  adoption  of  some  portion  at  least  of  Morelly's  proposals. 
Evolution  in  human  affairs  is  a  hard  task-master,  and  demands 
patience  all  the  time.  Revolution  by  force  seems  a  short  cut  to 
the  realisation  of  the  ideal  which  the  most  impatient,  often  the 
noblest,  of  reformers  are  eager  to  take.  But  reaction  almost 
invariably  follows,  even  upon  success,  if  the  time  is  not  ripe  for 
complete  change  in  social  relations.  This  teaching  of  history 
becomes  monotonous  in  its  reiteration. 

The  failure  of  Baboeuf  and  his  successors,  who  tried  first  to 
stem  the  tide  of  reaction  which  set  in  after  the  great  awakening 
of  1793,  was,  however,  in  nowise  due  to  the  work  of  Morelly  fifty 
years  before,  much  as  Baboeuf  himself  was  affected  by  the  philo- 
sophic dreamer  of  dreams.  It  arose  from  the  rapid  increase  in 
the  wealth  and  strength  of  the  bourgeoisie,  who  were  forming 
a  plutocracy,  allied  to  the  lawyers  and  the  bureaucracy.  This 
power  grew  steadily  up  from  riches  accumulated  by  lucrative 
contracts  during  the  continuous  war  against  invaders,  from  the 
purchase  at  derisory  prices  of  lands  confiscated  from  the  nobility 
and  the  Church,  and  from  the  manipulation  of  assignats 
and  paper  money.  Although,  in  1794,  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  ordered  that  public  lands  should  be  quickly  disposed  of 
in  small  lots,  their  regulations  were  still  set  at  naught  as  before, 
and  the  rich  were  thus  enabled  to  become  richer  by  continuing 
to  buy  extensive  tracts  at  low  prices. 

Such  practices  produced  wide  discontent  among  the  people 
both  in  country  and  in  town,  and  afforded,  as  it  appeared,  a 
fruitful  field  for  vigorous  communal  agitation.  In  fact,  many 
of  the  townsfolk  accepted  communal  ideas  when  they  found  that 
the  Revolution  had  relieved  them  of  aristocratic  rule  only  to 
give  them  other  masters.  From  this  time  forward  there  grew 
in  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  great  cities  the  hope 
of  another  social  revolution,  which  should  sweep  aside  the 
triumphant  bourgeoisie  and  constitute  a  communist  society. 
But  there  was,  as  yet,  no  real  proletariat,  with  recognised  class 
interests,  and  definite  organisation  for  class  action.  What  could 
be  done  at  that  time  on  Socialist  lines  against  a  body  of  mi- 
scrupulous  ex-revolutionists,  who  had  piled  up  vast  wealth  for 
themselves,  who  controlled  the  Directory,  who  were  supported 
by  powerful  financial  interests  of  every  kind  and  had  virtual 


THE   FORERUNNERS  OF  FORTY-EIGHT     245 

control  of  the  army  and  its  chiefs  ?  The  fate  of  the  unfortunate 
BalxEuf,  who,  with  his  associates,  strove  to  make  head  against 
this  growing  domination  of  the  new  bourgeoisie,  in  favour  of  the 
democratic  elements  of  the  re\'olution  and  the  starving  people 
— for  times  were  still  desperately  bad — did  not  encoiu*age 
others  to  follow  in  his  wake.  He  suffered  death  by  the  guillo- 
tine, not  because  of  any  political  crime  that  he  had  committed, 
but  because  he  acted  on  the  principles  of  that  very  Revolution 
which  these  wealthy  reactionary  parvenus  had  championed 
and  then  basely  abandoned. 

The  seed  which  Morelly  had  sown,  and  Chaumette,  Le  Roux, 
L'Ange  and  others  watered,  brought  forth,  unfortunately,  only 
self-sacrifice  and  death  for  those  who  allowed  the  fruits  of 
his  conceptions  to  allure  them.  Jaures  puts  the  position  very 
clearly.  Not  the  most  far-sighted  of  them  all  championed  the 
substitution  of  common  property  for  the  oligarchical  property 
of  the  great  manufactm-ers  or  the  distributed  property  of  the 
master  craftsmen.  "  The  more  Utopian  communists  of  the 
eighteenth  century  thought  only  of  an  agrarian  communism  " 
— this  is  generally  true,  though  it  is  certainly  not  so  mani- 
fest in  the  case  of  Morelly — "  and  their  industry  appeared 
to  them  as  the  field  for  personal  initiative  and  individual  pro- 
perty. The  master  craftsmen  likewise  adhered  passionately  to 
their  relative  autonomy  and  to  their  property,  no  matter  how 
illusory  it  might  be.  It  needed  nearly  a  century  and  the  growth 
of  the  great  mechanical  factories,  to  teach  the  master  craftsmen 
of  Lyons,  of  Roanne,  of  Saint  Etienne  that  the  social  evolution 
inevitably  condemned  them  to  become  .proletarians  :  barely 
even  to-day  do  they  begin  to  conceive  of  the  communal  system. 
How  could  they  have  done  so  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  ?  " 
The  most  that  could  have  been  achieved,  Jaures  continues,  was 
a  demand  foT  protective  legislation  limiting  the  day's  work, 
fixing  a  minimum  wage  with  liberty  of  combination.  What 
does  all  this  mean  save  that,  however  desirous  men  of  genius 
may  be  to  build  up  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  earth  for  man- 
kind, it  is  wholly  impossible  to  create  one  either  by  force,  or  by 
reason,  until  such  time  as  the  inevitable  course  of  evolution  has 
placed  the  means  of  bringing  this  about  at  the  disposal  of 
humanity.  Meanwhile  the  many  are  crushed  under  the  fortunes 
of  the  few,  and  a  new  slavery  replaces  the  old. 


246  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Morelly  was  a  philosopher  and  a  man  of  letters.     L'Ange,  the 
Utopian  Socialist  and  communal  propagandist  of  Lyons,  was  an 
artisan.     He,  too,  half-a-century  after  Morelly,  was  even  more  of 
a  Utopian  Socialist  than  the  theorist  of  the  library.     He  saw 
clearly  enough  that  the  workers  produce  all  the  wealth  and  are 
deprived  of  the  whole  of  what  they  create,  save  just  enough  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together,  by  the  idlers  who  dub  themselves 
owners.     But  manual  toiler  of  the  great  silk  manufacturing 
centre  of  Lyons  as  he  was,  he  could  go  no  further  than  the  land 
problem.     There  is  no  conception  of  the  organisation  of  the 
victims  of  a  class  war  as  one  great  army  against  the  exploiters 
of  labour.    Moreover,  he  appeals  to  the  King,  and  looks  for  some 
heaven-sent  deliverer  to  come  forward  and  liberate  the  people 
from  their  oppressors.     But  nothing  can  be  more  outspoken 
than  this  :    "  The  truth  which  enlightens  us  tears  asunder  the 
absurd  veil  of  property,  with  which  our  enemies  drape  themselves 
in  the  insolent  pride  of  sloth.     The  gold  on  which  they  plumed 
themselves  is  only  useful  and  wholesome  when  in  the  hands  of 
us  labourers ;  it  becomes  pestiferous  when  accumulated  in  the 
safes  of  capitalists,  who  are  to  the  body  politic  what  ulcers  are  to 
our  physical  frames  .  .  .  the  land  is  settled  only  by  us :    we 
are  they  who  work,  we  are  the  first  owners,  the  first  and  last 
useful  occupiers.     The  idlers  who  call  themselves  owners  can 
but  grab  the  surplus  over  and  above  our  actual  subsistence ; 
that  proves  at  least  our  co-ownership.     But  if,  naturally,  we  are 
co-owners  and  the  sole  cause  of  all  returns,  the  right  to  reduce 
our  subsistence  and  to  deprive  us  of  the  surplus  is  the  right  of 
a  brigand."    L'Ange  therefore  demands  from  the  King  the 
surrender  of  his  Civil  List  and  the  expropriation  of  all  landed 
property.     Later,  when  democracy  had  made  way  and  L'Ange 
himself  had  been  elected  to  the  municipality  of  Lyons,  he  no  longer 
appealed  to  the  King,  but  set  to  work  to  elaborate  schemes  for 
production,  instead  of  complete  expropriation,  which  anticipated 
the  designs  of  Fourier.    Whether  L'Ange  had  ever  studied  the 
works  of  Morelly  does  not  appear,  but  probably  the  ideas  pro- 
mulgated by  that  Socialist  were  known  in  Lyons  as  general 
projects  of  social  reconstruction. 

I  have  thus  dealt  with  these  two,  even  now  comparatively 
unknown,  authors  because  in  their  works  we  find  the  origins 
not  only  of  the  communistic  designs  of  direct  action  under  arms, 


THE   FORERUNNERS  OF  FORTY-EIGHT    247 

as  set  forth  by  Cliauiiictte  and  Babceuf,  but  also  the  outHnes  of 
the  programmes  of  Fourier,  Cabet,  Victor  Considerant,  and  even 
of  the  founders  of  Brook  Farm.  Here,  too,  we  have  the  anar- 
chistic communism  summarised  by  Proudhon  in  his  famous 
La  PropriSU  c'est  le  Vol,  a  repetition  in  more  striking  form  of 
L'Ange's  claim  that  the  ownership  of  the  non-producers  and  the 
idle  is  "  brigandage  " ;  and  here  is  even  the  outline  of  Kropotkin's 
eloquent  Appeal  to  the  Young.  It  is  all,  in  fact,  an  echo  of  the 
cry  of  the  oppressed  toilers  ringing  down  through  the  centuries, 
and  yet  another  proof  of  the  futility,  as  a  matter  of  practice,  of 
endeavouring  to  attain  results  which  the  conditions  of  the  time 
decree  to  be  unrealisable. 

In  France  more  than  in  any  other  country  the  desire  to  antici- 
pate events,  to  proceed  from  the  ideal  to  the  real,  from  theory 
to  practice,  is  a  permanent  influence  with  the  people ;  and  in 
Paris,  of  all  cities,  the  dreams  of  a  higher  humanity  urge  on  men 
and  women  to  deeds  of  hopeless  heroism.  But  the  French 
Revolution,  by  planting  the  peasantry  firmly  on  the  soil,  fur- 
nished a  vast  body  of  individualist  conservatism  to  outweigh 
the  fine  humanitarian  collectivism  of  the  towns ;  while  still 
keeping  the  peasants  themselves  ill-requited  toilers  at  the  most 
arduous  of  all  occupations — the  cultivation  of  small  plots  of 
land. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE 

The  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  not  content  with  overthrowing 
the  aggressive  Imperialism  of  Napoleon,  made  the  stupendous 
blunder  of  imposing  upon  the  fallen  empire  the  old  monarchy 
of  reaction  and  incompetence.  Louis  XVIII.  and  his  exiled 
nobility  had  learnt  nothing  and  had  forgotten  nothing.  If  they 
could  have  restored  the  ancien  rSgime  and  resuscitated  the  dry 
bones  of  feudalism,  they  would.  This  was  impossible.  But  all 
that  they  were  able  to  accomplish  in  this  direction  they  did,  be- 
sides avenging  themselves  on  their  enemies,  and  compensating 
their  friends  for  their  overthrow.  Yet  the  Bourbon  monarchs 
of  the  Restoration,  with  all  their  eagerness  to  return  to  the  old 
period,  as  if  the  Revolution  had  never  taken  place,  found  it 
out  of  their  power  either  to  restrain  the  growing  influence  of 
the  bourgeoisie,  or  to  put  back  the  peasantry  or  the  artisans 
into  their  position  of  subservience.  Nevertheless  the  clergy 
and  the  aristocracy  had  more  control  than  was  advantageous 
either  for  the  people,  the  Crown,  or,  in  the  long  run,  for  them- 
selves. And  as  time  went  on  discontent  grew.  The  economic 
and  social  results  of  the  Revolution  remained  far  behind  the 
ideals  for  which  the  mass  of  Frenchmen  had  fought  and  fallen 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  impulse  given  towards  the  attain- 
ment of  higher  and  nobler  conditions  remained  :  their  realisa- 
tion seemed  indefinitely  postponed. 

This  was  much  more  felt  under  Charles  X.  than  under  his 
predecessor.  The  King's  belief  in  his  right  divine  was  pro- 
found ;  and,  as  a  reasonable  return  to  the  Deity  from  whom  he 
derived  his  royal  prerogative  to  rule  over  his  subjects,  he  did 
his  utmost  to  make  them  as  devout  Catholics  as  himself.  The 
priesthood  regained  much  of  their  old  influence;  freedom  of 
speech  and  the  Press  was  restricted  as  far  as  possible ;  only 
those  ministers  were  favoured  who  were  given  over  to  anti- 
democratic policies.     This  could  not  go  on.     The  memories  of 

248 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      249 

the  great  Revolution  and  the  good  which  it  had  done  were  still 
fresh  in  men's  minds  ;  the  recollections  of  its  horrors  had  partly 
been  obliterated  by  the  glories  of  Napoleon's  victories,  partly 
dimmed  by  efflux  of  time.  Whether  or  not  the  hour  had  come 
for  another  great  effort  towards  freedom,  all  could  agree  that 
the  day  had  gone  by  for  an  irresponsible  monarchy,  dominated 
by  unscrupulous  priestcraft  and  intriguing  aristocracy.  Paris 
once  more  took  the  lead  in  overthrowing  a  kingship  which  had 
all  the  drawbacks  of  intolerable  usurpation,  wedded  to  worn-out 
traditions  of  the  sanctity  of  hereditary  rule.  Three  days  of 
tremendous  street  fighting  in  the  metropolis  were  sufficient,  in 
July,  1830,  to  put  an  end  to  the  resuscitated  Bourbon  dynasty. 
Charles  X.  and  all  his  descendants  found  themselves  chased 
into  exile,  from  which  they  can  never  hope  to  return. 

This  sudden  and  complete  defeat  of  unconstitutional  and 
semi-despotic  monarchy  was  not  surprising.  For,  since  1815, 
the  spirit  of  republicanism,  democracy,  Socialism  and  even 
anarchy  had  been  growing  beneath  the  surface  in  all  the 
great  towns.  What  was  still  more  fatal  to  the  form  of  kingship 
admired  and  upheld  by  the  last  of  the  Bourbon  kings  of  France, 
was  the  fact  that  he  had  failed  to  propitiate  the  bourgeoisie, 
who  now  required  not  only  the  substance,  but  the  appearance, 
of  power.  Had  Charles  recognised  this,  and  acted  in  accordance 
with  the  wishes  of  that  section  of  the  country  which  was  now, 
in  effect,  the  most  powerful  political  and  economic  factor,  he 
might  have  held  his  own  during  his  life  against  the  real  forces 
of  progress,  just  as  Louis  PhiUppe  and  Napoleon  III.  afterwards 
did  for  a  time.  As  it  was,  he  united  parties  against  him  which 
dexterous  statesmanship  might  have  separated  ;  and  the  very 
honesty  of  his  bigotry  only  rendered  his  downfall  more  complete. 
That,  in  any  case,  France  was  not  ripe  for  the  reconstitution 
of  the  RepubUc,  used  and  then  discarded  by  Napoleon,  was 
clear  from  what  followed  upon  "  the  glorious  days  of  July  " 
which  sent  Charles  headlong  from  his  throne.  Had  the  Re- 
publicans possessed  a  strong  hold  upon  Paris,  the  great  in- 
dustrial towns  and  the  country,  the  road  to  power  was  open 
before  them,  even  more  clearly  than  it  was  eighteen  years  later. 
Louis  Philippe,  with  all  his  considerable  faculties  and  by  no 
means  undistinguished  career  as  a  friend  of  the  Revolution,  a 
soldier  of  the  Republic,  an  exile,  and  a  man  of  thought  and 


250  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

intelligence,  had  no  great  wave  of  popular  entlnisiasni  l)ehind 
him  such  as,  twenty-three  years  afterwards,  enabled  Napoleon 
III.  to  sweep  into  control  of  France  as  President.  Yet  he 
became  king  in  place  of  his  relative,  with  little  difficulty  and  no 
bloodshed.  His  family  had  been  for  two  or  three  generations 
the  favoured  royalists  of  the  bourgeoisie,  and  his  father, 
whatever  his  shortcomings  in  other  respects  prior  to  his  decapi- 
tation, had,  at  least,  been  true  to  his  friends  and  fellow- 
conspirators  of  that  class,  against  the  adherents  of  the  ancien 
rigime.  Louis  Philippe  inherited  the  family  tradition,  and  he 
ascended  the  throne  as,  above  all,  the  bourgeois  king.  From 
1830  onwards  he  played  that  r61e,  and  that  alone. 

He  was  a  man  of  peace,  and  he  maintained  peace.  He  over- 
came the  risings  of  1834  without  incurring  any  bitter  animosity, 
and  he  slipped  out  of  foreign  difficulties  which  might  easily  have 
involved  his  country  in  war.  There  was  nothing  to  be  said 
against  his  personal  character.  His  relations  with  his  wife  and 
family  were  beyond  reproach.  The  class  which  he  specially 
favoured  made  money  steadily  throughout  his  reign,  and  he 
looked  on  with  satisfaction  at  their  accumulation  of  wealth. 
Corruption  was  not  uncommon,  and  this  was  the  charge  princip- 
ally levelled  at  himself  and  his  ministers  towards  the  close  of 
his  reign.  But  Louis  Philippe  was,  it  appears,  personally  in- 
corruptible. He  himself  also  did  nothing  seriously  harmful  to 
the  mass  of  people  and  was  universally  admitted  to  have  ability. 
It  is  no  easy  matter,  even  to-day,  with  all  the  documents  of  the 
time  before  us,  to  say  precisely  why  he  lost  heart  at  a  compara- 
tively trifling  crisis,  and  ran  away  in  disguise.  But  the  truth 
seemed  to  be,  not  that  the  real  revolutionists,  who  came  im- 
mediately to  the  front  from  below,  were  ready  to  act  and  did 
act,  but  that  he  had  somehow  "  bored  "  the  Parisian  bour- 
geoisie and  disgusted  the  artisans,  had  failed  to  rally  the 
peasantry  to  his  standard,  and  had  been  unable  to  impress  the 
nation  as  a  whole  with  the  sense  that  he  was  dignified  himself 
and  cared  for  its  dignity.  He  roused  no  hatred,  but  he  stirred 
no  enthusiasm.  He  had  no  enemies,  but  he  could  rely  upon  no 
friends.  He  had  shown  ability  before  he  came  to  the  throne, 
but  he  displayed  only  judicious  mediocrity  when  he  attained  it. 
To  no  man  of  modem  times  could  the  famous  epigram  of  Tacitus 
be  applied  with  more  manifest  truth  than  to  Louis  Philippe  : 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      251 

Omnium  consensu  capax  imperii  nisi  imperasset.  It  is  true  that 
accidents  do  not  make  political  revolutions,  but  they  give  the 
opportunity  for  them  when  all  is  ready  for  a  change.  And  that 
is  how  the  revolution  in  France  in  1848  came  about.  A  chance 
firing  upon  a  crowd  by  a  company  of  misguided  soldiers,  and  King 
Louis  Philippe  went  skulking  out  of  France  as  "  Mr  Smith." 

Then  began  the  first  serious  effort  to  acliieve  the  conquest  of 
social  and  economic  liberty  for  the  people,  since  the  decline  of 
the  revolution  of  1789  to  1794.  For  thirty-three  years,  from 
1815  to  1848,  revolutionary  France  had  become  conservative 
France — for  twenty  years  longer,  if  we  reckon  from  the 
triumph  of  the  reactionary  forces  in  1794-1795.  The  great  im- 
pulse towards  general  freedom  in  its  true  sense  had  come  too 
soon  for  more  than  very  partial  realisation ;  the  bourgeoisie, 
which  won  its  own  special  struggle,  was  indifferent  to  all  else ; 
the  peasantry,  no  longer  chained  to  the  land  by  personal  ties, 
but  by  pecuniary  bonds  to  the  market,  had  become  conserva- 
tive tlirough  sheer  individualism  ;  the  Parisian  wage-earners 
and  intellectuals  were,  as  ever,  far  in  advance  of  the  country  as 
a  whole  ;  the  Socialists,  with  all  their  high  ideals  and  splendid 
enthusiasm,  had  not  yet  formed  a  definite  party,  even  in  Paris, 
Lyons  and  the  industrial  centres  of  the  north,  and  were  regarded 
with  distrust  and  hatred  not  only  by  the  population  of  the  rural 
districts,  but  by  the  majority  of  the  high  and  low  bourgeoisie. 

Yet  the  latter,  with  the  more  progressive  of  the  middle  class, 
formed  the  combination  which  pushed  the  King  from  his  throne, 
rushed  to  the  barricades,  then  so  easily  run  up  in  the  narrow 
streets  of  the  metropolis,  with  arms  in  their  hands,  against  an 
enemy  that  for  the  moment  lay  low,  and  clamoured  for  social 
measures  on  behalf  of  the  population.  There  were  plenty  of 
differences  even  then  among  the  men  of  the  extreme  left,  but  in 
the  early  days,  though  moving  from  various  centres,  they  acted 
towards  a  common  end.  Louis  Blanc,  Ledru  Rollin,  Albert  and 
Arago  were  combined  in  the  attack  with  the  great  Blanqui, 
Barbes,  Cabet  and  even  the  anarchist  Proudhon.  So  Uttle, 
however,  did  the  leaders  at  the  top  know  of  the  forces  which 
they  were  supposed  to  command  that,  when  it  came  to  the 
formation  of  a  Provisional  Government,  none  of  its  members 
so  much  as  knew  Albert,  the  engineer,  who  was  the  hero  of  all 
working-class    Paris.     Yet    his  fellow-workmen    insisted    that 


252  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Albert  should  at  once  be  accepted  as  a  member  of  the  Govern- 
ment, so  completely  had  he  their  confidence.  Accepted  he  was. 
This  the  Parisians  followed  up  by  electing  liim  at  the  head  of 
the  poll  for  the  metropolis  to  the  National  Assembly. 

Mistakes  were  soon  made.  The  Provisional  Government 
itself  was  a  coalition  of  compromise,  and  had  all  the  weaknesses 
inherent  in  such  political  combinations.  Men  like  Garnier- 
Pages,  Marie,  Flocon,  Lamartinc,  could  not  long  continue  to 
work  in  accord  with  the  Socialists  and  Radicals,  especially  when 
they  could  not  even  agree  upon  the  reforms,  administrative  and 
social,  which  should  be  adopted  before  the  National  Assembly 
was  elected,  and  laid  before  that  body  as  definite  measures  for 
confirmation,  rejection  or  modification.  The  plan  actually 
adopted  of  having  no  clear  Government  policy  really  played  into 
the  hands  of  fanatical  insurrectionists,  such  as  Blanqui  and 
Barbes  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Royalists  and  reactionists,  who 
stood  behind  the  moderates,  on  the  other.  There  was  no  effec- 
tive official  administration  to  meet  the  clamours  of  the  populace, 
who,  with  a  heavy  financial  deficit  bequeathed  to  them  from 
M.  Guizot's  administration  above,  were  menaced  with  famine 
below. 

What  the  Socialists  of  reorganisation,  represented  by  the  trio, 
Louis  Blanc,  Ledru  RoUin  and  Albert,  might  have  effected,  had 
they  been  allowed  a  free  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Louis 
Blanc's  proposals,  as  formulated  in  his  own  works,  were  based 
upon  schemes  of  Socialist  co-operation  for  all.  He  adopted  in 
its  fullest  meaning  Morelly's  phrase,  so  generally  attributed  to 
the  communist  anarchists,  but  most  certainly  not  originated  by 
them  :  "  From  each  according  to  his  abilities  :  to  each  accord- 
ing to  his  needs."  His  practical  schemes  of  working-class  co- 
operation in  different  departments  were  successful  until  upset 
by  the  reactionary  bourgeoisie ;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether,  even 
if  they  had  been  left  alone,  they  could  have  been  permanent. 
That  the  organisers  and  the  employees,  who  were  all  workers 
together,  should  have  achieved  what  they  did,  with  scarcely  any 
capital  to  start  upon,  was  most  creditable.  Also  it  is  clear  that 
Louis  Blanc  desired  to  apply  his  measures  on  a  very  much  larger 
scale,  since  he  demanded,  when  the  Republic  had  been  consti- 
tuted by  the  Provisional  Government,  that  a  complete  Depart- 
ment of  Labour  should  be  established,  with  a  responsible  minister 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      253 

at  its  head.  This  was  a  statesmanlike  project,  which  might  have 
led  to  great  improvements  in  the  organisation  and  conditions  of 
existence  of  the  mass  of  the  workers  in  the  cities.  But  reaction 
was  now  gaining  ground,  and  the  National  Assembly  had  become 
little  better  than  an  obstacular  combination  of  the  bourgeoisie 
and  their  hangers-on.  So  obvious  was  this  that  it  afforded  some 
ground — though  from  a  tactical  point  of  view  little  excuse — for 
the  attack  made  upon  it  by  the  physical  force  Socialists  and  their 
followers,  organised  by  Blanqui,  whose  natural  hatred  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  furious  desire  to  destroy  the  entire  profiteering 
system,  often  misled  his  judgment  and  obscured  his  remarkable 
intelligence.  The  attack  failed,  and  grossly  unfair  efforts  were 
made  to  connect  Louis  Blanc,  Ledru  RoUin  and  their  faction 
with  the  assault.  This  misrepresentation,  as  well  as  the  attempt 
itself,  told  against  Socialists  of  all  shades  of  opinion,  although 
they  had  nothing  to  do  with  Blanqui's  scheme.  In  fact  the  cry 
of  "  property  in  danger  "  was  thenceforth  raised  in  earnest,  and 
Proudhon's  anarchist  pronouncements  were  quoted  far  and  wide 
as  evidence  of  what  all  degrees  of  peaceful,  hard-working,  re- 
spectable citizens,  from  bankers  and  capitalists  down  to  pro- 
fessional men  and  small  shopkeepers,  must  expect  if  the  Social- 
ists and  their  proletariat  had  their  way.  Thus,  even  before  the 
RepubUc  had  gained  a  firm  hold  on  the  situation,  the  path  to 
supreme  power  was  being  prepared  for  an  anti-Socialist  dictator; 
and  the  feeling  of  the  provinces  towards  Paris,  never  too  friendly, 
was  greatly  embittered.  It  is  this  antagonism  between  the 
conservative  peasantry  of  the  rural  districts  and  the  brilUant 
idealism  of  la  ville  lumiere  that  has  so  often  proved  a  serious 
source  of  trouble  to  France  tliroughout  the  nineteenth  century. 
But,  in  addition  to  all  this,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  series 
of  misrepresentations  ever  recorded  in  liistory  was  devised, 
carried  out,  and  triumphantly  brought  to  a  conclusion,  by  the 
politicians  of  the  dominant  bourgeoisie,  in  order  to  discredit  and 
permanently  damage  the  reputation  of  their  Socialist  opponents. 
All  the  world  knew  that  the  constructive  Socialists  of  1848 
wished  to  organise  the  labour  of  the  wage-earners  on  co-operative 
principles,  with  the  help  of  capital  ad^'anced  by  the  State,  so 
that  production  and  distribution  might  be  established  in  the 
interest  of  the  whole  community,  but  primarily  for  the  benefit 
of  the  workers  themselves,  and  under  their  control,  without 


254  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

profit  to  the  capitalist  class.  It  was  the  same  idea  that  found 
expression  at  the  same  date  in  Great  Britain,  through  the  plans 
of  Robert  Owen  and  some  of  the  Chartists.  The  Louis  Blanc 
party  never  concealed  their  hopes  of  being  able  to  bring  this 
about,  with  the  aid  of  their  friends  of  the  so-called  Luxembourg 
group.  It  was  to  this  end  that  a  Ministry  of  Labour  was  pro- 
posed; and  it  was  because  the  adherents  of  the  bourgeoisie  feared 
that  such  a  department  would  lead  to  the  success  of  the  scheme 
on  a  large  scale  that  they  defeated  the  suggestion  in  the  National 
Assembly.  They  thought  that  it  might  bring  to  naught  all 
their  favourite  machinery  of  private  property  in  the  means  and 
tools  of  production  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  profiteering 
based  upon  wage  slavery.  This  was  their  reason  for  nipping  the 
scheme  of  State  co-operation  in  the  bud. 

Whether  the  project  could  have  been  successful,  even  if 
worked  to  its  fullest  extent,  with  perfect  good  faith  and  with 
ample  capital,  at  that  particular  juncture,  may  be  doubted. 
Probably  not.  But  it  is  quite  indisputable  that  not  a  single 
member  of  the  Socialist  party  had  the  crude  conception  of 
massing  together  a  great  body  of  workpeople,  anxious  to  obtain 
employment,  who  were  of  quite  different  capacities  and  dis- 
similar trades,  in  one  establishment,  under  one  head,  paying 
them  all  an  inadequate  wage  to  start  with,  and  then  paying 
those  who  applied  for  work,  but  could  not  be  employed,  half 
that  wage,  whether  they  were  doing  useful  service  or  not.  Dur- 
ing the  eighteen  years  of  Louis  PliiUppe's  reign  nothing  had  been 
done  to  benefit  the  poor  workers  or  to  organise  the  unemployed, 
but  numerous  plans  had  been  put  forward,  outside  the  Govern- 
ment, to  deal  with  an  increasingly  difficult  problem.  Notliing, 
however,  so  wholly  idiotic  as  this.  The  Socialists  had  no  capital 
wherewith  to  start  such  an  absurd  project,  and  no  State  organ- 
isation at  their  disposal  wherewith  to  put  it  in  motion.  That 
it  was  doomed  to  failure  was  obvious  from  the  very  first. 

Yet,  from  that  time  to  this,  Louis  Blanc,  Ledru  RoUin,  Albert, 
and  the  Socialists  generally,  have  been  held  responsible  by  the 
capitalist  Press  in  every  country  for  these  National  Workshops 
of  the  French  Republic,  with  which  they  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  any  shape  or  way.  Even  to-day, 
when  the  whole  of  the  lying  statements  have  been  exposed,  and 
the  truth  has  been  told  time  after  time,  the  National  Workshops 


FORTY-EICxHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      255 

arc  still  brought  up  to  prove  the  folly  of  any  attempt  at 
collective  management  in  the  interest  of  the  people. 

This  seems  incredible ;  but  the  facts  have  been  placed  quite 
beyond  dispute,  not  only  by  Louis  Blanc  and  his  coadjutors,  but 
by  the  Minister  who  authorised  the  enterprise,  by  the  Manager 
of  the  National  Workshops  himself,  and  by  contemporaneous 
records  of  what  was  done.  The  Minister  who  undertook  the 
elaboration  of  the  whole  scheme  was  M.  Marie.  M.  Marie  was 
not  only  not  a  Socialist,  but  was  one  of  the  most  vehement  anti- 
Socialists  of  his  time,  as  he  never  hesitated  to  declare.  The 
head  of  the  whole  establishment  was  M.  Henri  Thomas,  likewise 
a  strong  anti-Socialist,  who  wrote  a  book  still  extant  recording 
the  progress  of  the  works.  All  this  must  be  known  to  most  of 
the  anti-Socialist  ^Titers  who  have  used  these  Industrial  Work- 
shops, set  on  foot  and  maintained  by  men  of  the  same  opinions 
as  themselves,  for  the  purpose  of  decrying  all  SociaUst  effort ; 
yet  the  misrepresentation  goes  on. 

But  the  downfall  of  this  foolish  or  deliberately  sinister  plan — 
for  many  were  of  the  opinion  that  so  fatuous  a  scheme  was  set  on 
foot  with  the  express  object  of  preventing  any  reasonable  effort 
in  the  same  direction — played  a  gi-eat  part  in  the  events  which 
followed.  The  waste  of  public  money  was  comparatively  small, 
but  it  was  enough  to  serve  as  an  argument  among  the  small 
traders,  and  to  strengthen  the  propaganda,  shortly  thereafter 
organised  throughout  the  provinces  among  the  peasantry,  in 
favour  of  a  strong  and  stable  government.  This  new  govern- 
ment would  Icgitmiately  secure  remunerative  work  for  aU,  would 
put  an  end  to  all  attacks  upon  private  property,  would  protect 
the  savings  alike  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  would  secure  the  ex- 
pansion of  trade  and  the  gro\N'th  of  profits  that  went  on  under 
the  late  king,  without  the  corruption  that  permeated  all  depart- 
ments of  the  State,  would  give  France  again  her  rightful  leader- 
ship in  Europe — would,  in  short,  be  the  rule,  not  of  the  powerless 
and  discredited  Republic,  but  of  a  genuine  Republic,  under  the 
Presidency  of  Louis  Napoleon  Buonaparte,  who  had  been 
allowed  to  return  to  France  as  a  private  citizen.  How  Louis 
Napoleon  and  his  clique  of  unscrupulous  adventurers  succeeded, 
first  in  dominating  the  Republic  through  his  Presidency,  ac- 
claimed by  the  French  people,  and  then  in  establishing  himself 
as    Emperor    by   an    overwhehning  plebiscite    in    his  favour, 


256  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

need  not  be  dealt  with.  The  powerful  bourgeoisie  welcomed 
Napoleon  III.  for  fear  of  Socialism,  as  their  forbears  had  wel- 
comed Napoleon  I.  to  shut  down  the  Revolution.  It  was  reaction 
again  in  its  worst  form.  But  it  was  reaction  based  upon  the 
will  of  the  people,  and  the  bourgeois  Empire  lasted  as  long  as 
Louis  Philippe's  bourgeois  Kingdom.  Even  just  before  its  over- 
throw by  the  German  invaders  in  1870,  another  plebiscite  had 
declared  that  the  great  majority  of  Frenchmen  preferred 
Napoleon  III.,  in  spite  of  all  his  blunders,  to  the  establishment  of 
a  third  Republic.  France,  which  is  rural  France,  was  not  ready 
to  accept  the  leadership  of  Paris,  then  bitterly  opposed  to 
Napoleon,  his  wife  and  all  their  coterie.  It  needed  the  terrible 
defeats  and  devastations  of  1870  to  shake  down  the  Empire. 

When,  in  1870,  the  news  of  the  disasters  on  the  front  reached 
Paris  there  was  no  thought  of  reorganising  the  Empire  under 
a  Regency.  The  cry  for  abdication  immediately  arose.  The 
Empress  was  glad  to  get  safely  out  of  the  metropolis  and  take 
refuge  in  England.  A  Republic  was  at  once  established  and  a 
moderate  or  even  conservative  government  formed.  During 
the  last  years  of  the  Empire  Socialism  had  gained  much  ground 
in  Paris ;  and  its  adherents,  who  had  never  bowed  to  the  Im- 
perialist despotism,  which  the  more  active  spirits  had  conspired 
to  overthrow,  took  their  part  in  the  new  administration. 

So  long  before  as  1847  the  famous  Communist  Manifesto, 
by  Marx  and  Engels,  had  been  published.  No  pamphlet 
in  modern  times  has  ever  had  so  wide  and  so  continuous 
an  influence.  Even  now,  seventy-two  years  after  the  first 
appearance  of  the  Manifesto,  it  is  continually  quoted  by 
Social  Democrats  and  Labour  men,  its  historical  survey  is 
generally  admitted  to  be  sound,  and  its  prognostications  are 
being  verified  all  round  the  world.  Its  authors  boldly  declare 
that  in  every  country  where  the  capitalist  system  of  pro- 
duction prevails,  the  last  class  war,  that  between  the  wage 
slaves  and  the  bourgeoisie  —  who  with  their  parasites  now 
own  and  control  all  the  means  for  making  and  distributing 
wealth — is  the  one  great  subject  for  the  workers  to  consider. 
They  are  economically  and  socially  the  hereditary  successors  of 
the  chattel  slaves  and  the  serfs.  Now  will  come  their  turn. 
They  must  combine  to  conquer,  not  only  nationally  but  inter- 
nationally.   With  them,  as  time  goes  on,  the  whole  of  the  rest 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      257 

of  the  disinherited  class,  such  as  the  small  shopkeepers  and 
intellectual  proletariat,  will  be  forced  to  make  common  cause 
to  overthrow  the  wages  system  and  constitute  a  Communist 
Republic.  For  this  great  struggle  the  workers  of  all  nations 
must  band  themselves  together. 

It  is  clear,  from  the  concluding  exhortation  to  the  workers  to 
use  the  collective  power  they  would  then  attain,  that  the  authors 
still  believed,  when  the  Communist  Manifesto  was  penned,  that 
*'  force  could  act  as  the  midwife  of  the  old  society  pregnant  with 
the  new,"  and  that  a  capable,  thoroughly  educated  and  en- 
thusiastic minority  might,  in  some  degree,  anticipate  events  to 
the  advantage  of  all  by  forcible  action  in  each  of  the  great  in- 
dustrial centres  of  their  respective  countries.  This  concession 
to  the  natural  impatience  of  toiling  humanity,  when  once  we 
understand  how  its  members  are  enslaved  by  capitalism  and 
the  wages  system,  runs  counter  to  the  authors'  own  theories. 

But  in  1847  all  Europe  was  astir  with  fresh  ideas,  national 
and  social,  and  the  possibility  of  a  new,  wider  and  more  suc- 
cessful French  Revolution  was  in  every  mind.  The  Chartists 
vigorously  preached  their  national  views  of  the  class  antagon- 
ism in  Great  Britain ;  and  more  than  one  of  their  leaders 
gave  those  practical  views  of  the  growth  and  historical  bear- 
ing of  economic  relations  upon  the  existing  capitalist  system, 
which  were  more  elaborately  and  scientifically  set  forth  in  the 
Manifesto.  But  the  conception  of  a  concerted  international 
movement,  and  revolution  under  arms  against  capital,  first 
made  its  public  appeal  to  the  peoples  of  Europe  in  that 
Manifesto.  In  1848,  however,  it  had  little  direct  influence 
even  on  Continental  risings.  In  1870  the  situation  was 
very  different.  The  International  had  been  formed  in  1864  in 
London,  and  had  held  its  first  Congress  in  Geneva  in  1868. 
There  were  acute  differences  between  the  various  sections  of 
Socialists  then,  as  ever  since  ;  but  Marxian  theories  had  already 
had  considerable  effect,  and  were  accepted  as  a  whole  by  many 
Socialists,  who  were  by  no  means  inclined  to  concur  in  the 
personal  attitude  which  Marx  and  Engels  too  often  adopted. 
Nevertheless  the  International  made  a  great  impression  on  the 
world,  much  greater  than  its  strength  warranted  at  this  date 
(1868-1870).  The  capitalist  class  instinctively  felt  that  its  right 
to  domination,  or  even  to  existence,  was  definitely  challenged  all 

R 


258  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

over  the  civilised  world,  and  its  fears  for  the  future  were  trans- 
lated into  apprehension  for  the  present. 

When,  however,  the  Freneh  Empire  fell,  and  a  Republic  was 
proclauned,  there  was  nothing  whatever  to  give  an  indication 
that  Socialists  would  choose  perhaps  the  most  unjiromising 
opportunity  that  could  have  been  offered  to  attempt  a  serious 
movement  in  Paris,  on  behalf  of  the  proletariat,  national  and 
international.  Nor  did  they  choose  it.  The  people  of  Paris, 
who  had  undergone  all  the  terrible  trials  of  starvation  during 
the  siege  by  the  German  army,  were  first  provoked  into  resist- 
ance by  the  wholly  unjustifiable  attempt  of  the  reactionary 
element  in  the  Provisional  Government  of  the  metropolis  to  dis- 
arm their  citizen  forces.  The  same  Government,  then,  regardless 
of  the  fact  that  the  victorious  German  army — certainly  no  friend 
to  Communism — still  kept  watch  and  ward  round  their  city, 
drifted  into  a  policy  which  put  the  Commune  in  Paris  at  vari- 
ance with  the  rest  of  France.  The  leaders  of  the  extreme  party 
then  forced  the  pace,  without  knowing  the  road  they  had  to 
travel. 

Their  quarrels  prevented  them  from  achieving  even  a 
limited  success  against  the  troops  which  M.  Thiers  gathered  to 
assail  them  at  Versailles.  Had  they  attacked  these  troops, 
before  they  were  consolidated  under  efficient  generalship,  and 
won,  the  citizens  of  Paris  might  have  negotiated  on  reasonable 
terms  with  their  countrymen,  who  proved  themselves  later  to  be 
their  most  ruthless  enemies.  But  noble  as  were  the  ideals  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  Commune,  they  entirely  misjudged  the  situa- 
tion without,  and  as  completely  overrated  their  strength  within. 
Not  only  so,  but  they  overlooked  the  crucial  fact  of  their  position. 
They  forgot  that  the  Commune  of  Paris  played  a  decisive  part 
in  the  great  effort  against  feudalism  at  the  crisis  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, in  1792,  and  before  reaction  set  in,  precisely  because  Paris 
then,  as  to  some  extent  again  in  1848,  had  the  sympathy  and 
support  of  the  other  large  cities  of  France,  and,  still  more 
important,  of  the  peasantry  and  the  rural  districts  generally. 
But,  in  the  case  of  the  Commune  of  1871,  there  was  no  such  even 
incipient  solidarity.  Early  in  the  conflict  an  arrangement  for 
common  action  was  rendered  virtually  impossible.  Paris  had 
to  suffice  for  herself.  Many  who  sympathised  with  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  Communists  saw  from  the  beginning  that  this  made 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      259 

the  situation  hopeless.  That  is  why  there  were  such  strenuous 
endeavours  to  bring  about  terms  of  accommodation  to  the  de- 
plorable civil  war  between  the  brain  and  the  body  of  France. 
But,  owing  to  the  intransigent  attitude  taken  up  on  both  sides, 
all  such  well-meant  intervention  was  vain.  During  the  days 
that  passed  from  March  to  May  the  conflict  became  more  and 
more  a  fight  to  the  death  between  the  national  and  international 
proletariat  and  people,  as  represented  by  the  Parisians  with  their 
municipal  troops,  and  the  bourgeoisie,  championed  by  M.  Thiers 
and  liis  army  outside  the  walls.  Unfortunately  for  them,  the 
Communists  could  neither  develop  a  mihtary  genius  whom  all 
would  trust — Cluseret,  the  ablest  who  appeared,  was  constantly 
hampered  by  internal  jealousies — nor  a  capable  diplomatist 
who  might  conceivably  have  brought  about  peace.  So,  for 
two  months,  the  world  looked  on  at  a  battle,  the  result  of  which 
was  inevitable  if  continued  to  the  bitter  end. 

The  Socialist  party  throughout  the  world,  as  well  as  many 
wage-earners  who  were  not  Socialists,  were  hoping  against  hope 
that  some  miracle  might  save  their  fanatical  comrades  from 
destruction.  The  capitalist  class  and  their  Press  of  that  day 
rejoiced  to  see  the  Communists  thus  driven  into  a  comer,  with 
the  Germans  ready  to  crush  them,  if,  by  any  such  miracle,  they 
gained  a  temporary  advantage.  Whatever  mistakes  they  may 
have  made,  and,  unluckily  for  the  cause,  they  made  many,  none 
could  dispute  the  honesty  or  high  idealism  of  the  majority  of  the 
leaders,  or  of  the  rank  and  file  who  fought  at  the  Barricades. 
They  were  striving  for  the  emancipation  of  the  working  people 
from  the  sordid  organisation  of  production  for  profit,  and  the 
substitution  of  a  nobler  system  for  the  whole  civilised  world. 
Those  of  the  Communists  who  differed  most  as  to  methods  were 
agreed  as  to  the  end  they  wished  to  attain.  Therefore,  from 
that  day  to  this,  the  men  and  women  who  fell,  during  the  fighting, 
and  after  the  victory  of  the  bourgeoisie,  have  been  regarded  as 
martyrs  for  the  great  cause  of  human  freedom,  economic  and 
social.  The  horrible  butcheries  on  the  plains  of  Satory  and  else- 
where, with  which  the  bourgeoisie  celebrated  their  triumph, 
strengthened  this  feeling.  Such  wholesale  slaughter  was  in- 
tended, not  merely  to  avenge  the  rising  upon  the  insurrection- 
ists, but,  like  Napoleon  III.'s  cold-blooded  shooting  down  of 
the  crowds  upon  the  boulevards,  to  terrorise  the  revolutionary 


260  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

people  of  Paris  for  at  least  a  generation.  So  ruthless  were  these 
immolations  of  men  and  women  against  whom  often  no  offence 
was  proved,  that  a  change  of  feeling  was  manifest  even  in  the 
capitalist  Press.  Beside  these  massacres,  such  deplorable  events 
as  the  killing  of  General  Thomas  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris  and  other  hostages,  for  which  the  Communist 
leaders  were  not  responsible,  faded  into  mere  incidents.  But 
they  were  incidents  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  incendiary 
fires,  were  long  used  to  inflame  public  opinion  against  all  who 
held  and  expressed  Socialist  views. 

What  made  the  whole  rising  the  more  regrettable  was  the 
strength  and  weakness  displayed  by  the  Communists  when  they 
had  Paris  entirely  in  their  hands.  Their  strength  was  shown 
in  the  complete  absence  of  corruption,  in  the  perfect  freedom  for 
all  which  was  maintained  during  their  administration,  in  the 
almost  excessive  parsimony  of  the  heads  of  departments  in  their 
own  personal  expenditure,  and  in  the  quite  admirable  manage- 
ment, not  only  of  all  the  municipal  work  of  Paris,  but  of  other 
civil  matters  which  fell  within  their  scope.  According  to  the 
testimony  of  conservative  foreigners  of  means  and  education 
who  knew  the  French  capital  well,  never  was  Paris  so  clean, 
so  orderly,  so  excellently  ruled  in  every  respect  as  during  the 
short  period  of  the  Commune.  The  elected  of  the  workers 
showed  in  this  respect  the  highest  sense  of  responsibility.  Their 
weakness  they  displayed  in  still  adhering,  when  in  power,  to 
some  of  the  narrowest  prejudices  of  the  bourgeoisie  against  whom 
they  were  in  revolt.  They  went  so  far  as  to  confuse  respect  for 
private  property  with  veneration  for  the  sanctity  of  public  and 
absolutely  necessary  funds.  Thus  when  £60,000,000  in  gold 
and  an  enormous  store  of  silver  were  lying  in  the  Bank  of  France 
they  actually  borrowed  a  trifle  of  £40,000  from  the  Rothschilds. 
What  might  have  been  effected  in  the  way  of  bribing  their 
enemies  with  these  vast  accumulations,  especially  at  the  outset, 
they  failed  to  consider. 

But  the  greatest  mistake  was  to  drift  into  the  conflict  at  all. 
A  desperate  struggle  of  this  kind  is  precisely  what  should  be 
avoided  by  the  oppressed  class,  until  at  least  a  fair  prospect  of 
success  lies  immediately  ahead,  and  a  complete  policy  has  been 
formulated.  The  emancipation  of  the  workers  of  the  world 
cannot  be  brought  about  by  half-trained  levies,  with  no  adequate 


FORTY-EIGHT  AND  SEVENTY-ONE      261 

commanders,  and  civil  administrators  who  see  no  farther  than 
the  passing  problems  of  the  day.  High  ideals  call  for  the  highest 
ability  and  foresight,  with  a  cool  judgment  of  the  situation,  to 
secure  their  realisation.  Defeat  on  such  an  issue  ought  not  to 
be  lightly  risked.  When  incurred,  it  brings  with  it  long  and 
serious  discouragement.  For  leaders  to  imagine  that  capitalism 
can  be  overtlirown,  before  its  time  and  under  impossible  circum- 
stances, by  glorious  self-sacrifice  and  magnificent  but  unorganised 
heroism,  is  a  species  of  martyrdom  which  involves  temporary 
ruin  to  the  cause.  Leaders  who  act  on  these  principles,  there- 
fore, are,  with  perfect  honesty  and  the  best  of  intentions,  un- 
true to  their  trusteeship  for  humanity.  For  leaders  there  will 
ever  be ;  and  the  loss  or  exile  of  the  best  of  them  means  a  set- 
back to  the  principles  they  strive  for.  Not  only  did  the  failures 
of  the  Commune  of  Paris  tlirow  back  the  whole  movement  of 
education  and  political  action  for  at  least  twenty  years,  but, 
fifty  years  after,  the  calumnies  and  misrepresentations,  which 
have  been  unjustly  but  plausibly  heaped  upon  its  champions,  tell 
against  the  apostles  of  Socialism  to-day. 

The  truth,  on  the  other  side,  is  that,  sad  as  the  campaign  of 
the  Communists  may  have  been  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
workers,  injurious  as  its  inevitable  failure  was  to  the  general 
movement,  and  fatal  for  the  time  being  to  the  International, 
which  was  credited  with  responsibihty  for  the  attempt,  the  real 
criminals  were  the  statesmen  and  generals  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
By  their  illegal  attempt  to  disarm  the  defenders  of  Paris  they 
put  themselves  wholly  in  the  wrong  to  begin  with.  By  their 
revolting  cruelty  and  shameful  injustice  they  covered  them- 
selves with  infamy  at  the  end. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM 

When  Great  Britain  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  described  as  being  still  an  agricultural  country, 
possessed  of  no  "  great  industry  "  in  the  modern  sense,  the  signi- 
ficance of  this  statement  is  not  always  fully  comprehended. 
But  in  order  to  understand  the  development  which  followed,  it 
is  essential  to  grasp  what  the  England  of  the  early  part  of  that 
century  really  was.  The  total  population  of  England  and  Wales 
certainly  did  not  exceed  6,500,000  people,  all  told,  in  1750.  More 
than  three-quarters  of  these  people  lived  in  the  agricultural 
districts  or  in  small  country  towns  which  were  dependent  upon 
agriculture.  Of  the  remaining  1,400,000  or  1,500,000  some 
700,000  are  computed  to  have  been  resident  in  London,  but 
all  the  statistics  of  that  period  are  very  imperfect.  Though 
manufacture  was  developing  and  commerce  was  relatively  large, 
there  was  nothing  to  show  that  the  nation  was  on  the  eve  of 
the  greatest  industrial  revolution  the  world  has  ever  seen.  The 
people  were,  as  a  whole,  rather  better  off  than  they  had  been 
in  the  century  before.  The  new  growth  of  the  towns  brought 
about  a  larger  demand  for  corn,  etc.,  and  rendered  arable 
land  more  profitable  than  pasture  in  many  localities.  Thus 
more  agricultural  labourers  were  required,  and  unemployment 
was  reduced.  Much  of  the  manufacture,  such  as  the  spinning 
and  weaving  of  wool,  was  carried  on  in  the  villages  throughout 
the  country.  Agriculture  and  manufacture  were  not  as  yet 
divorced  from  one  another.  Some  of  the  artisans  and  their 
families  stUl  cultivated  their  own  plots  of  land.  Farmers  and 
agricultural  labourers  were  comparatively  prosperous.  Great 
Britain  was  even  a  corn-exporting  country,  as  she  had  been  in 
the  days  of  the  Roman  occupation.  Higher  wages  obtained 
than  had  been  paid,  relatively  to  the  price  of  food,  since  the 
palmy  days  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  common  land  was  still 
not  wholly  seized  from  the  people,  and  general  conditions  were 
better  than  in  the  previous  century. 

262 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM   263 

Great,  therefore,  as  were  the  drawbacks  to  the  whole  system 
of  parish  settlement  which  then  prevailed,  confining  workers  to 
the  district  in  which  they  were  bom,  if  they  wished  to  secure 
some  provision  for  themselves  and  their  children  in  sickness 
or  old  age ;  preposterous  as  seem  to  us  the  arrangements 
whereby  the  lords  of  the  soil  and  their  adherents  were  masters 
of  all  they  surveyed ;  iniquitous  as  we  necessarily  deem  the 
political  disfranchisement  of  those  whose  labour  supplied  the 
privileged  classes  with  their  luxuries,  and  the  violence  and 
corruption  by  which  these  same  privileged  classes  asserted  and 
maintained  their  supremacy  ;  nevertheless,  when  every  possible 
allowance  is  made,  it  may  be  confidently  asserted  that  there  was 
far  less  misery  and  physical  deterioration  at  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  proportion  to  the  population  and  general 
wealth,  than  there  is  to-day. 

Thus,  the  England  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  still  an  England  of  agriculturists  and  handicraftsmen, 
as  it  had  been  for  many  generations.  Tillage  had  greatly 
improved,  and  much  land  had  been  reclaimed  from  marsh  and 
forest.  Mining  had  increased,  and  in  some  directions  produc- 
tion for  profit,  unhampered  by  the  more  stringent  Middle  Age 
restrictions,  had  grown  up.  Production  on  the  land,  notwith- 
standing the  change  in  the  social  relations  and  the  conversion 
of  dues  and  services  into  money  payment,  was  not  materially 
different  from  what  it  had  been  ages  before  in  our  own  and  other 
countries.  In  one  respect,  however,  the  cultivators  and  crafts- 
men were  worse  off  than  their  predecessors  of  the  times  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  in  Babylonia  or  under  the  Antonines  in  Rome. 
Nay,  even  in  the  period  of  the  monasteries  they  were  not  at  such 
a  great  disadvantage.  Of  the  Babylonian  roads  we  have  no  full 
records,  but  we  do  know  that  the  posts  of  the  Babylonian 
monarchs  were  delivered  with  a  regularity  and  rapidity  which 
must  put  their  means  of  communication  on  a  level  with  their 
admirable  irrigation  works.  Of  the  Roman  roads  we  can  judge, 
not  only  by  the  rapid  journeys  made  and  the  great  marches 
accomplished  by  their  armies,  but  by  the  remains  of  the  fine 
causeways  constructed  by  the  legionaries  in  our  own  island. 
By  these  great  roads  their  Empire  was  held  together.  The  same 
with  the  Peruvians,  who  could  by  no  possibility  have  maintained 
their  control  over  their  subjugated  peoples,  covering  such  a  vast 


264  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

stretch  of  country,  had  it  not  been  for  their  roads  and  bridges, 
with  barracks  and  blockhouses  erected  along  the  highway. 

There  was  nothing  of  all  this  in  the  Great  Britain  of  the 
Georges.  After  the  destruction  of  the  monasteries,  whose 
abbots,  priors  and  monks  kept  up  reasonable  means  of  com- 
munication between  their  properties,  for  their  own  personal 
advantage,  the  roads  in  this  island  became  almost  impassable, 
except  in  summer-time,  over  a  large  part  of  the  country.  The 
main  highroads  were  hardly  better  than  the  subsidiary  tracks. 
Transport  was  necessarily  limited.  Throughout  the  south  of 
England  the  roads  were  as  bad  as  "  the  infernal  road,"  described 
by  Arthur  Young  as  serving  what  were,  even  in  his  day  (1770), 
the  most  populous  and  prosperous  districts  of  Lancashire.  This 
difficulty  of  home  transport  inevitably  made  the  comparatively 
sparse  population  more  scattered  than  the  mere  distances  be- 
tween the  towns  and  villages  would  convey  to  the  mind.  The 
very  traditions  of  road-making  had  died  out;  and  home  trade 
was  so  hampered  by  the  cost,  and  even  danger,  of  conveyance  by 
land  that  the  possibility  of  improvement  seemed  very  remote. 
The  deliberate  enactments  of  the  Middle  Ages,  confining  trade 
within  strict  limits,  were  far  less  harmful  to  internal  traffic  than 
the  chaos  in  transport  due  to  abominable  roads. 

Thus,  in  production  and  distribution,  the  country  life  of  Eng- 
land a  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago  was  to  all  appearance  little 
in  advance,  economically,  of  the  England  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
or  of  the  Continental  countries  which,  politically,  were  far  behind 
her  in  social  development.  One  great  distinction,  however, 
there  was,  which,  in  the  long  run,  dominated  the.  domestic  situa- 
tion. The  people,  though  completely  freed  from  the  direct 
trammels  of  villeinage  and  serfdom,  had  already  been  to  a  very 
large  extent  uprooted  from  the  soil.  The  majority  of  the  culti- 
vators no  longer  owned  the  land  upon  which  they  toiled :  the 
capitalist  farmers  had  interposed  between  them  and  the  land- 
owners (to  whom  these  farmers  now  paid  differential  rents  in 
money)  and  employed  the  expropriated  peasants  as  free  wage- 
earners.  The  artisan  class  in  the  towns  and  cities  was  in  much 
the  same  position.  They  were,  as  said  above,  in  a  better  posi- 
tion than  their  fathers  of  the  previous  century,  owing  to  the 
rise  in  the  standard  of  life,  based  upon  higher  wages  and  lower 
prices  for  necessaries.     But  their  personal  freedom  was  nominal, 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM   265 

not  real.  A  state  of  tilings  had  been  created  below  the  surface 
to  which  there  was  so  far  no  parallel  in  history.  The  middle 
class  had  gained  political  po^er ;  and  their  strength  had  been  ex- 
tended and  confirmed  both  by  the  Civil  War  against  Charles  I. 
and  by  the  removal  of  James  11.  in  favom*  of  William  HI. 

The  influence  of  the  bourgeoisie  was,  in  fact,  slowly  becoming 
supreme.  This  meant  that  pecuniary  relations  were  being  sub- 
stituted for  personal  relations  all  along  the  Une.  Feudal  obliga- 
tions had  practically  lapsed  ;  guild  and  municipal  ordinances 
had  fallen  into  decay  ;  a  large  body  of  landless  wage-earners  had 
grown  up  out  of  the  breakdown  of  the  arrangements  of  the  old 
time ;  enclosures  were  steadily  proceeding  and  increasing  the 
landless  majority ;  commerce  had  attained  a  great  develop- 
ment ;  finance  had  become  an  increasingly  important  factor  in 
business  life.  All  the  social  conditions  were,  in  short,  ready  for 
the  installation  of  capital  in  its  last  and  dominant  form. 

As  shown,  this  point  of  readiness  was  never  attained  in  any  of 
the  ancient  economic  and  social  developments.  Production  for 
profit  had  made  its  appearance  at  more  than  one  epoch,  but  it 
had  never  rivalled  commerce  and  usury  as  a  means  of  accumu- 
lating riches  out  of  the  employment  of  money.  Neither  in  the 
period  of  chattel  slavery,  nor  in  that  of  serfdom,  could  capital, 
embodied  in  gold  or  silver,  enter  the  field  of  production  at  large, 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  emerging  as  a  larger  mass  of  monetary 
capital  in  the  hands  of  the  same  capitalist,  to  be  used  again  and 
again  for  the  Uke  process  in  order  to  obtain  more  profit. 

Capital,  as  the  controlling  force  in  economic  and  social  hfe, 
demands  not  merely  a  large  body  of  money  wealth  in  private 
hands — ^that  has  been  seen  many  times  in  human  history  with- 
out producing  any  such  result — but  it  also  calls  for  a  large  body 
of  men,  divorced  from  the  soil,  who,  hke  their  brethren  in  the 
towns  and  cities,  have  no  independent  resources  outside  their 
own  power  to  labour  :  who  are,  too,  by  improvement  in  the  pro 
cesses  of  production,  losing  control  over  their  own  tools  and  means 
of  production  which  pass  into  the  possession  of  the  capitalist 
class.  Now  England  had  reached  this  stage  of  economic 
and  social  development  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  more  completely  than  any  other  country.  Thus,  pro- 
vided there  were  markets  available,  the  success  of  capitalists 
who  turned  out  commodities  for  profit  instead  of  articles  for 


266  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

use  was  certain.  Production  generally  for  exchange,  there- 
upon, became  the  rule  and  no  longer  the  exception.  All  the 
machinery  for  this  transformation,  in  the  shape  of  banks,  credits, 
bills  of  exchange,  large  external  trade,  were  ready,  and  had  only 
to  be  expanded  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  situation. 

But  everything  had  proceeded  gradually  and  unconsciously. 
Neither  the  English  people  themselves,  their  statesmen,  poli- 
ticians or  leading  economists  had  any  idea  that  the  time  was 
near  when  the  island  of  Great  Britain  would  actually  enter  a 
period  wherein  capital,  in  its  industrial  profit-making  shape, 
would  completely  subvert  all  the  old  forms  of  production,  and 
act  in  a  most  revolutionary  sense  upon  the  whole  of  society. 
Adam  Smith,  whose  great  work  appeared  in  1776,  when  the  in- 
fluence of  the  large  steam-motived  machine  industry  was  already 
having  its  effect,  had  not  the  remotest  conception,  either  of  the 
immediate  or  the  ultimate  result,  of  the  vast  change  that  was 
going  on  all  round  him.  As  his  principal  biographer  puts  it,  the 
chief  object  of  Smith's  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Sources  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,  largely  based  upon  the  previous  works  of  the 
French  economists,  "is  to  demonstrate  that  the  most  effectual 
plan  for  advancing  a  people  to  greatness  is  to  follow  that  order 
of  things  which  nature  " — ^it  is  amusing  to  find  the  English 
economist  appealing  to  "  nature  "  after  the  fashion  of  Rous- 
seau— "  has  pointed  out,  by  allowing  every  man,  as  long  as  he 
observes  the  rules  of  justice  "  —  another  eighteenth-century 
abstraction — "  to  pursue  his  own  interest  in  his  own  way,  and  to 
bring  both  his  interest  and  his  capital  into  the  freest  competi- 
tion with  those  of  his  fellow-citizens."  It  is  creditable  to  Smith 
that,  having  in  view  this  principal  object  of  erecting  the  freest 
competition  of  capital  and  labour  into  a  sort  of  economic  deity, 
he  should  have  been  able  enough  to  discern,  and  honest  enough 
to  proclaim,  that  farmers  appeared  to  enter  into  a  combination 
to  keep  down  the  rate  of  wages.  But  St  Simon,  who  was  bom 
sixteen  years  before  the  publication  of  The  Wealth  of  Nations, 
and  issued  his  first  important  book  in  1819,  just  a  generation 
afterwards,  and  Fourier,  who  was  writing  simultaneously,  both 
saw  much  farther  than  this  ;  while  the  champions  of  the  Eng- 
lish proletariat,  Adam  Smith's  contemporaries,  though  unrecog- 
nised and  even  derided  in  their  lifetime,  were  very  far  ahead  of 
him  in  their  appreciation  of  what  was  really  going  on.    Nay,  a 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM     267 

hundred  years  earlier,  the  great  Quaker,  John  BeUers,  had 
already  pointed  out,  when  production  for  exchange  and  profit 
under  capital  was  only  in  its  infancy,  that  complete  liberty  of 
capital,  so  far  from  always  facilitating  exchange,  frequently 
hampered  it,  by  the  necessity  imposed  upon  the  capitalist  pro- 
ducer of  transforming  his  goods  into  gold  before  he  could  profit- 
ably continue  his  operations.  Here  the  antagonism  between 
gold  and  commodities,  afterwards  so  admirably  illustrated  by 
Marx  and  others,  is  first  noted  in  economics ;  and  its  conse- 
quences, under  capitalism,  in  bringing  about  unemployment  for 
\Nalling  labourers,  owing  to  an  artificial  obstacle  placed  in  the 
way  of  a  continuous  absorption  of  the  articles  of  use  created,  are 
animadverted  upon. 

This,  however,  is  a  partial  anticipation  of  reflections  that  will 
more  naturally  come  later.  The  main  points  to  be  considered 
and  emphasised  are :  First,  that  capital,  in  its  shape  of  control 
over  production  as  a  whole,  for  the  purpose  of  producing  articles 
of  social  use,  not  directly  for  such  use,  but  for  exchange,  to  obtain 
a  profit  for  the  capitalist  himself,  is  quite  modem,  a  form  of  pro- 
duction which  has  grown  up  within  the  last  few  generations,  and 
was  unknown,  except  as  an  accidental  and  transitory  pheno- 
menon, in  all  the  endless  ages  of  anterior  production.  Secondly, 
no  matter  how  great  the  accumulation  of  money  capital  might 
be,  it  could  not  be  continuously  employed  for  the  extraction  of 
profit  from  the  processes  of  industry  on  a  large  scale  imtil  the 
following  circumstances  arose  : — 

1.  A  class  of  men  with  no  other  means  of  gaining  a  living 
than  by  selling  their  power  to  labour,  as  individuals,  to  other 
individuals  who  owned  the  money  capital.  This  capital  the 
latter  used — in  part — to  pay  wages  to  the  former,  in  return  for 
the  right  to  control  for  a  specific  time  the  use  of  their  labour 
power. 

2.  The  development  of  an  economic  and  social  system,  in 
which  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  conception  of  production  for 
direct  use  had  faded,  and  the  produce  of  articles,  even  of  prime 
necessity,  for  exchange  on  an  open  market  had  become  the  rule. 

3.  The  existence  of  a  home  and  European,  extending  to  a 
world-wide,  market  for  the  purchase  of  these  conmnodities. 

4.  The  accumulation  of  capital  in  private  hands  in  sufficient 
amount  to  give  the  country,  which  had  reached  this  stage  of 


268  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

economic  development,  the  money  power  essential  to  begin  and 
carry  on  the  new  system  on  a  large  scale. 

5.  The  invention  of  new  machines,  motive  force  and  processes 
of  industry,  which  should  render  it  impossible  for  the  wage- 
earners,  as  individuals  and  as  a  class,  to  compete  in  any  way 
successfully  with  the  capitalists  for  the  possession  of  these  great 
means  of  production.  This  put  all  new  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions at  the  disposal  of  the  employing  class ;  divorcing  the 
workers  more  and  more  completely  from  any  control  over  the 
instruments  and  tools  and  machines  of  production  used  by  them 
as  wage-earners. 

Industrial  capital,  in  the  sense  of  profit-making  capital,  is  of 
recent  growth;  and  has  been  disguised  from  the  perception 
of  people  in  general  by  the  carelessness  of  historians,  of  whom 
Mommsen  was  a  prominent  offender,  in  applying  the  views  of 
capital  which  obtained  in  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  totally 
different  conditions  of  ancient  times.  Similarly,  with  the  forms 
of  capital  existing  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Even  in  our  own  day, 
in  the  midst  of  the  highly  developed  profit-making  capitalism  of 
the  present  century,  which  is  spreading  its  influence  all  over 
the  civilised  world,  we  read  such  definitions  as  "  Capital  is 
stored-up  labour  devoted  to  the  production  of  more  wealth." 
We  are  assured  also  that  "  capital "  and  "  labour  "  have  no 
antagonistic  interests,  and  that  the  capitalist  form  of  production 
for  exchange  and  profit  is  and  must  be  permanent.  The  owners 
of  chattel  slaves  of  old  time  suffered  from  the  same  hallucina- 
tion. The  feudal  nobles  who  succeeded  them  held  a  similar 
view  about  the  inevitability  of  serfdom.  As  Marx  wrote : 
"  Before  the  bourgeois  system  became  general  there  was  history  ; 
but  with  the  installation  of  capitalism  and  wagedom  history 
came  to  end.  Capital  producing  for  profit  out  of  the  unpaid 
labour  of  hired  workers,  capital  whose  possessors  own  and 
control  factories,  workshops,  mines,  ships,  machinery,  raw 
material,  means  of  transport  and  last,  not  least,  the  labourers 
themselves  as  a  class :  this  form  of  capital  it  is  which  in  its 
earlier  and  later  stages  is  destined  to  be  the  eternal  mistress 
of  production  for  the  entire  human  race,  according  to  the 
accredited  representatives  of  the  capitalists  themselves." 
About  that  they  have,  or  had  until  lately,  no  doubt. 

Let  us  take  the  second  group  of  elemental  conditions  from 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM    269 

which  this  wholly  new  and  previously  unthought-of  capital 
arose.  Obviously,  the  existence  of  propertyless  persons,  men, 
women  and  children,  so  completely  emancipated  from  previous 
conditions  as  to  be  able — that  is  to  say,  forced — ^to  sell  their  bodily 
power  in  order  to  subsist,  is  the  primal  necessity  for  the  form  of 
production  which  hatl  slowly  developed  out  of  previous  economic 
and  social  arrangements.  It  was  a  growth  like  other  growths. 
Let  all  the  other  essential  conditions  exist  and  this  fail,  then  the 
whole  superstructure  tumbles  down.  England  first  provided 
the  basis  for  the  capitalist  system  of  production  for  profit ;  and 
for  this  reason  the  island  of  Great  Britain,  with  its  genuine 
proletariat,  became  the  classic  ground  for  investigation  into  the 
genesis  of  modern  industrial  capital. 

During  this  development  of  the  proletarian  class  at  home, 
commerce  and  piracy,  negro  slavery  and  conquest,  wholesale 
cheating  and  sheer  robbery,  were  providing  the  nascent  class  of 
English  profiteering  industrialists  with  the  capital  necessary  to 
take  advantage  of  the  wage-earning  labourers,  who  were  thus 
being  made  ready  for  their  operations  on  a  large  scale.  The 
hoarded  wealth  of  India,  seized  and  brought  home  by  the  early 
invaders,  and  afterwards  remitted  more  legally  and  systematic- 
ally by  the  authorised  agency  of  the  East  India  Company,  pro- 
vided the  bulk  of  the  necessary  resources.  The  West  Indian 
colonial  system,  based  upon  the  toil  of  imported  black  slaves 
from  Africa,  and  the  nefarious  opium  traffic  with  China,  also 
added  to  the  accumulation  of  capital  previously  piled  up  by  the 
persistent  attacks  on  land  and  on  sea  against  the  Spanish 
colonies,  where  vast  riches  had  been  gathered  and  sent  to  Spain 
by  equally  nefarious  methods.  The  history  of  this  long  course 
of  rapine  is  well  known.  But  the  early  records  of  plunder  and 
the  careers  of  our  bold  but  unscrupulous  freebooters  are  set 
forth  in  prose  and  in  verse  among  the  greatest  glories  of  England's 
commercial  success  and  rising  maritime  supremacy.  That  the 
British  Empire  in  India,  for  example,  was  built  up  and  main- 
tained by  methods  of  conquest  and  annexation  well-nigh  as 
ruthless  as  those  which  marked  the  rise  of  the  Roman  power  was 
recognised  and  denounced  by  a  few  high-minded  Englishmen  at 
the  time,  but  has  scarcely  even  yet  been  acknowledged  by  our 
own  countrymen  or  by  the  world  at  large.  Yet,  when  surveyed 
without  prejudice,  it  is  clear  to  any  student  that  the  origins  of 


270  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

the  capital  which  enabled  England  to  come  to  the  front  at  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth,  and  during  the  greater  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  the  leading  industrial  and  commercial  country 
of  the  world,  were  worthy  of  that  period  which  commenced  with 
the  expropriation  of  the  people  from  the  land  in  Great  Britain 
itself ;  and  was  followed  by  a  reign  of  cruel  exploitation  of  men, 
women  and  children  in  English  factories  to  which  it  is  difficult 
to  find  a  parallel,  even  in  the  horrors  of  ancient  chattel  slavery. 
Here,  once  more,  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  incapacity  of  man 
to  understand  or  to  mitigate  the  inevitable  consequences  of  his 
own  greed  and  rapacity,  or  to  comprehend  that  the  increase  of 
the  powers  of  the  race  to  produce  wealth  with  less  labour  might 
be  turned  to  the  ever-growing  advantage  of  all,  and  not  to  the 
accumulation  of  riches  for  the  few. 

Those  who  saw  this  truth;  amid  the  welter  of  economic  change 
around  them,  were  unable  to  impress  their  opinions  upon  the 
mass  of  their  countrymen.  But  the  brilliant  and  true  state- 
ments of  Robert  Owen  in  1802  that  wealth  might,  even  then,  be 
made  as  plentiful  as  water,  and  that  national  co-operation  for 
production  was  the  only  way  to  arrive  at  this  desirable  result, 
were  derided  more  than  seventy  years  later  by  Engels  as  Utopian 
Socialism.  It  was  Utopian  only  in  the  sense  that  Owen  appreci- 
ated, a  hundred  and  twenty  years,  or  four  generations,  ago,  what 
we  of  to-day  are  only  just  beginning,  as  a  nation,  to  understand 
and  tentatively  to  realise.  He  and  those  who  worked  with  him, 
and  the  Chartists  who  were  his  later  contemporaries,  did  not 
fully  grasp  the  slow  historic  movement  of  economic  develop- 
ment and  popular  consciousness  ;  slow  still,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  though  the  increase  in  the  power  of  man 
over  nature,  in  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth,  was 
proceeding  with  a  rapidity  wholly  unprecedented  in  the 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  years  of  earlier  social  growth.  As 
it  was,  the  class  war  and  the  economic,  social  and  political  an- 
tagonisms arising  out  of  the  new  system  have  still  to  work  their 
way  until  the  mass  of  the  people  are  able  to  comprehend  the 
real  facts  of  their  own  surroundings;  then,  by  overmastering 
their  own  previous  ignorance,  they  will  qualify  themselves  to 
administer  the  still  higher  stage  of  human  evolution  which  is 
the  inevitable  outcome  of  capitalist  supremacy. 

To  return.     By  1765  all  was  prepared  for  the  great  industrial 


THE  RISE  OF  ENGLISH  CAPITALISM   271 

revolution  in  Great  Britain.  Tliere  was  a  large,  growing  popula- 
tion of  simple  wage-earners,  men,  women  and  children  divorced 
from  the  soil  and  destitute  of  property.  There  were  also  the 
Irish — now  undergoing  a  process  of  expropriation  like  that  which 
Englishmen  had  undergone,  but  in  a  harsher  shape — ready  to 
cross  the  Irish  Channel  when  needed,  in  order  to  compete  with 
Englishmen  on  a  still  lower  standard  of  Ufe.  The  capital  neces- 
sary to  build  factories,  purchase  machinery,  buy  raw  materials 
and  pay  wages  had  been  accumulated  from  without,  and  the  new 
and  powerful  forces  of  production  and  distribution  were  being 
provided  at  home.  Division  of  labour  among  workers,  giving 
to  each  labourer  one  small  monotonous  task,  segregated  from  the 
entire  whole  of  wliich  it  was  destined  to  form  a  part — so  bitterly 
commented  upon  by  Adam  Smith  as  niinous  to  the  worker  in 
every  way — had  already  paved  the  way  for  the  concentration 
of  bodies  of  wage-earners  under  one  roof.  This  form  of  manu- 
facture, prior  to  the  establishment  of  the  great  factory  industry, 
had  brought  such  competition  to  bear  upon  the  less  organised 
individual  workers  in  certain  trades  that  thus,  also,  the  struggle 
for  life  among  the  destitute  labourers  was  increased.  "  Why," 
asked  one  important  economist,  "  do  large  undertakings  in 
the  manufacturing  way  ruin  private  industry  but  by  coming 
nearer  to  the  simphcity  of  slaves  ?  "  It  was  this  simplicity  of 
slavery  under  capitalism  that  had  now  begun  in  earnest ;  though 
Sir  James  Stuart  himself,  who  asked  the  question,  had  as  Uttle 
conception  as  the  rest  of  the  terrible  fate  which  production  solely 
for  profit,  with  the  aid  of  the  great  inventions  now  coming  into 
use,  was  preparing  for  the  coming  generation.  AU  these  great 
inventions,  discoveries  and  improvements,  so  far  as  they  were 
applicable  to  industry  and  production,  fell  into  the  hands,  not 
of  the  people  at  large,  but  of  the  capitaUst  class  who  used  them 
invariably  against  the  interests  of  the  wage-earners  —  wage 
slaves,  as  Sir  James  Stuart  in  effect  called  them — who  were 
entirely  at  their  command. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL 

It  is  only  when  the  various  economic  and  social  developments 
are  put  in  order  of  date  that  we  can  understand  the  cunuilative 
effect  upon  Great  Britain  wliich  produced  the  astonishing  results 
that  followed.  Before  this  remarkable  series  of  changes  took 
place  struggles  between  labour  and  capital  were  by  no  means  un- 
common, and  laws  were  passed  giving  the  justices  of  the  peace 
powers  to  fix  fair  rates  of  wages  in  the  interest  of  the  workers 
between  employers  and  employees.  The  latest  important  strike 
under  these  conditions  that  I  can  trace  took  place  in  the  year 
1756.  It  was  between  the  weavers  of  wool  and  their  masters. 
The  justices  were  accused  by  the  weavers  of  refusing  to  comply 
with  the  law  for  fixing  an  adequate  rate  of  wages.  This  led  to  a 
definite  revolt,  by  which,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  confronting 
them,  such  as  the  resolute  attitude  of  the  masters  and  the  in- 
clination of  the  lower  grade  of  employees  to  give  way  and  sur- 
render, the  weavers  won.  The  year  of  this  struggle  is  worth 
noting,  for  it  may  be  taken  as  practically  recording  the  end  of  the 
old  system  of  antagonism  between  handicraftsmen  as  such  and 
the  capitalism  of  that  stage  of  industry. 

Shortly  thereafter  the  greatest  purely  industrial  revolution  of 
all  time  began.  Its  steps  forward  may  thus  be  traced  by  the 
improvements  in  cotton  and  wool  machinery  and  the  system  of 
commimications,  with  the  dates  of  the  following  inventions  : — 

Everett. — ^Machine  for  weaving  wool,  1758.  Machine  de- 
stroyed by  workers,  1758. 

Hargreaves. — First  carding  and  spinning  machines,  destroyed 
by  the  workers  themselves,  1764-1767. 

Arkwright  (who  for  his  spinning  inventions  plundered  Highes 
and  other  inventors  right  and  left). — 1769. 

Crampton. — Spinning  jenny  and  mule,  1779. 

Watt. — Steam-engine  providing  motive  power,  1773-1784. 

Cartxvright. — ^The  loom,  leading  to  the  power-loom,  1785. 

272 


USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL    273 

General  coal  and  iron  development  from  1780  and  onwards. 

Whitney. — Separation  of  cotton  from  seeds,  1793. 

Jacquurd. — Loom,  1811. 

Macadam. — Highroads,  1811. 

Coal,  hot  blast,  etc.,  from  1784. 

Telford. — Improvement  of  Macadam  system  laying  down 
great  roads  throughout  England  and  Wales. 

Canals  (Bridgewater),  1758. 

Bell,  Fulton. — Steamboats,  1857  onwards. 

Stevenson. — ^The  development  of  railways  from  tramways. 
First  railway,  1830.     Main  system  completed,  1848. 

The  expansion  in  population  and  wealth  during  this  period 
from,  let  us  say,  1780,  was  quite  unprecedented  up  to  that  time. 
In  regard  to  population,  the  growth  was  remarkable  not  only  in 
the  mere  numbers  but  in  proportion  to  the  time  required. 

Thus  the  increase  in  the  hundred  and  twenty  years  from  1630 
to  1750  is  estimated  at  800,000,  or  from  5,700,000  to  6,500,000, 
or  at  the  average  of  no  more  than  66,000  a  year.  From  1750  to 
1800,  however,  there  was  an  addition  of  upwards  of  3,000,000 ; 
from  1801  to  1821  a  further  increase  of  more  than  2,000,000 ; 
in  the  ten  years,  1821  to  1831,  another  2,000,000,  giving  at  the 
latter  date  a  total  population  of  14,000,000  ;  while  in  1841  the 
population  amounted  to  nearly  19,000,000,  or  roughly  about 
80  per  cent,  more  than  the  total  for  1801.  This  was  a  pheno- 
menal rise,  which  was  accompanied  by  an  increase  in  mechanical 
power  of  production,  largely  worked  by  women  and  children, 
calculated  at  the  time  as  equal  to  the  labour  power  of  80,000,000 
men,  but  was  probably  a  very  great  deal  more.  Out  of  the  in- 
creased population  not  fewer  than  1,000,000  were  poor  Irish 
driven  from  their  homes,  who  were  coming  over  to  Great  Britain 
at  the  rate  of  50,000  a  year  to  compete,  as  stated  above, 
with  British  labourers  on  a  lower  standard  of  life.  By  far  the 
greater  proportion  of  this  increased  number  of  persons  in  the 
island  were  propertyless  wage-earners,  engaged  in  manufactures 
in  the  towns.  The  proportion  of  families  engaged  in  agriculture 
had  actually  fallen.  In  1801  it  was  35  per  cent,  of  the  whole ; 
in  1814  but  25  per  cent.  The  addition  in  the  whole  country  to 
agriculture  was  only  7^  per  cent.  Yet,  so  greatly  had  even 
agricultural  methods  improved,  that  in  forty  years  the  pro- 
duction of  wheat  alone  had  increased  yearly  to  the  extent  of 


274  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

44,000,000  bushels,  or  sufficient  for  the  consumption  of  an  extra 
5,500,000  persons  at  the  rate  of  eight  bushels  per  head. 

Production  and  trade,  profits  and  accumulations  went  up  by 
leaps  and  bounds  in  the  same  period.  Nothing  so  amazing  had 
ever  before  been  seen  in  all  economic  history  ;  not  even  when  the 
treasures  of  the  Mediterranean  basin  were  being  poured  into  the 
lap  of  the  Roman  aristocracy.  It  was  this  sudden  increase  of 
wealth,  and  the  development  of  England's  supremacy  in  industry 
and  commerce  which  enabled  our  country  to  make  head  against 
the  vast  power  of  Napoleon,  and  eventually  to  defeat  that  great 
general  and  administrator.  Even  during  the  war  itself  the  riches 
of  the  capitalists  and  landlords  increased  enormously.  The 
figures  themselves  look  small  in  comparison  with  recent  statistics 
for  Great  Britain  and  other  countries,  especially  the  United 
States  of  America.  Germany  and  Japan  also  have  exhibited 
extraordinary  progress  within  the  past  forty  years.  But  when 
we  examine  the  ratio  of  development  prior  to  the  rise  of  English 
capitalism,  the  years  between  1801  and  1841  or  1848  constitute 
an  unprecedented  epoch  in  human  history.  Not  a  single  de- 
partment but  showed  phenomenal  expansion.  Leaving  exports 
and  imports  aside,  as  being  possibly  capable  of  more  than  one 
explanation,  we  find  that  public  buildings,  inhabited  houses  of 
considerable  rental,  the  growth  of  large  steam  factories,  the  value 
of  real  and  personal  property,  and  the  greatly  improved  com- 
munications all  gave  evidence  of  extraordinary  prosperity  for 
the  rich.  Times  of  crisis  and  apparent  depression  barely  checked 
the  general  advance.  Fire  insurance,  which  only  amounted  to 
£230,000,000  in  1801,  ran  up  to  over  £800,000,000  in  1848.  In 
England  and  Wales  alone  the  rental  of  real  property  increased 
by  £40,000,000  in  thirty  years.  The  whole  of  the  well-to-do 
classes  shared  in  these  surprising  results,  and  fortified  their 
economic  and  social  positions  in  every  way. 

But  what  was  going  on  among  the  mass  of  the  people  ?  In 
my  Historical  Basis  of  Socialism  (1883)  I  gave  an  account  of  the 
frightful  state  of  things  for  the  wage-earners  which  accompanied 
this  rise  of  wealth  for  the  propertied  classes.  This  survey 
was  based  upon  official  reports  and  Parliamentary  papers,  and 
strengthened  by  the  admirable  investigations  of  foreign  observers, 
as  well  as  by  the  fine,  self-sacrificing  work  done  by  the  great 
Chartist  agitators  and  statesmen,  with  the  scathing  criticisms  of 


USELESS   REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL     275 

the  noble  Robert  Owen  and  the  powerful  denunciations  of  Sadler, 
Oastler  and  other  champions  of  the  people.  Since  then  others 
have  worked  in  the  same  field.  The  pubhc,  therefore,  have 
nowadays  a  general  but  superficial  knowledge  of  w  hat  went  on 
in  Great  Britain  in  those  long-drawn  years  of  horror  for  the 
workers,  when  the  capitalists  of  this  island  had  tliuigs  all  their 
own  way.  Conditions  for  large  sections  of  the  workers  are  very 
bad  in  Great  Britain  even  now,  a  hmidred  years  later.  But  in 
the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  atrocities  committed 
by  the  employers  upon  the  men,  women  and  children  who  were 
forced  to  sell  their  labour  power  to  those  exploiters  of  mankind 
exceed,  in  continuous  and  calculated  infamy,  the  general  suffer- 
ings of  the  workers  in  the  times  of  chattel  slavery  and  serfdom. 

During  the  whole  of  the  fifty  years  when  capitalism  was 
fastening  its  grip  upon  this  country  wages  were  very  low  and 
prices  were  high.  It  was  impossible  for  a  man  alone  to  keep 
liis  wife  and  family  decently  upon  the  pittance  he  could  com- 
mand for  his  labour  from  the  capitahsts.  So  keen  was  the 
competition  of  the  propertyless  wage-earners  that  remuneration 
fell  below  the  standard  of  life  necessary  to  keep  the  labourers 
in  health.  Then  women  and  children  were  dragged  into  the 
slave  factory.  The  scenes  in  the  mines  of  Egypt  and  Athens 
described  by  Diodorus  Siculus  and  others,  the  tales  of  brutality 
under  feudaUsm  recorded  by  the  annalists  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
refer  to  adult  men  and  women.  Children  suffered  in  the  homes, 
but  their  misery  was  not,  as  a  rule,  created  deUberately  by 
the  slave-owners  or  serf-owners. 

But  in  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  in  the  halcyon  times  of 
laissez-faire,  women  and  cliildren  were  the  principal  victims 
of  the  inhuman  greed  of  the  profit-making  class.  Women  were 
overworked,  in  the  factories  above  ground  and  in  the  mines 
below  ground,  to  such  an  extent  that  the  whole  future  of  our 
race  was  jeopardised.  The  doctors  who  denounced  the  entire 
system  from  this  point  of  view,  and  pointed  out  its  dangers 
for  the  nation,  the  official  inspectors  who  exposed  the  dreadful 
abuses  rising  out  of  these  anarchical  proceedings  in  regard  to 
family  life,  the  humanitarian  politicians  and  agitators  who  tried 
to  shame  the  capitalists  into  decent  behaviour  and  stir  up  pubhc 
opinion  against  them — one  and  all  failed  to  obtain  any  reforms, 
or  any  effective  reduction  of  hours  of  labom*,  for  fully  half-a- 


276  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

century.  With  the  children  of  tender  years  it  was  even  worse, 
especially  with  those  who  were  sent  out  of  the  workhouses  in  order 
that  the  capitalists  might  have  their  will  of  them  in  their  fac- 
tories and  workshops.  These  wretched  infants  were  systematic- 
ally worked  to  death  by  their  employers,  toiUng,  under  constant 
fear  of  the  lash,  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hours  out  of  the  day. 

This  was  the  climax  of  horror.  The  facts  were  published  far 
and  wide.  How  the  employers  crushed  the  very  life  out  of  these 
babes,  in  order  to  make  more  profit  for  themselves,  was  well 
known  and  discussed  in  every  city  of  Great  Britain.  Tremen- 
dous efforts  were  made  by  noble  men  to  put  a  stop  to  this  frightful 
slaughter  of  the  innocents.  All  to  no  purpose  for  many  a  long 
year.  The  philanthropists  of  capital  were  destitute  of  any 
human  morality.  Even  when  a  law  was  passed  to  restrict 
this  liberty  of  unlicensed  slave-driving  for  defenceless  children 
it  was  not  accompanied  by  any  means  of  enforcing  its  prohibi- 
tions, and  the  employers  simply  went  on  as  before.  Their  motto 
was  :  "  Buy  cheap,  sell  dear.  Labour  is  only  a  commodity  like 
other  commodities.  Children  are  the  cheapest  and  most  easily 
squeezed  commodity  of  that  type."  Therefore  they  declared  it 
was  to  the  interest  of  the  country  they  should  be  worked  to 
death  as  their  fathers  and  mothers  were.  No  wonder  that  the 
toilers  of  Lancashire  were  worn  out  at  the  rate  of  ten  years  to 
a  generation. 

All  the  while  new  machinery,  which  had  ruined  handicraft 
and  had  been  used  to  maintain  a  permanent  fringe  of  un- 
employed upon  the  labour  market,  to  keep  down  the  rate  of 
wages  in  the  factories,  was  piling  up  wealth  at  a  pace  previously 
unknown.  Men  who,  like  Owen,  could  compare  the  slavery  of 
the  West  Indies,  and  of  the  Southern  States  of  the  great  American 
Republic,  with  the  condition  of  the  free  workers  under  the 
domination  of  capital  in  Great  Britain,  one  and  all  declared  that 
the  chattel  slaves  and  their  children  were  in  every  way — in  food, 
clothing,  housing,  hours  of  labour,  treatment  in  sickness,  even 
in  education — far  better  off  than  the  wage  slaves  of  their  native 
land.  It  is  indeed  the  truth  that  British  wage  slavery  during 
the  rising  period  of  capitalism  was  worse  in  many  respects  than 
any  slavery  previously  known  on  the  planet. 

If,  therefore,  there  was  ever  in  history  a  time  when  forcible 
revolt  in  any  shape  was  justifiable,  when  men  were  righteously 


USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL    277 

impelled  to  use  whatever  means  came  to  hand  for  the  purpose 
o(  freeing  themselves  from  unendurable,  mimerciful  and  sordid 
slave-driving  oppression,  that  time  was  the  period  from  1780,  or 
a  few  years  before,  to  1841-1848  in  this  country.  Where  greed 
for  gain  and  the  certainty  of  procuring  it  was  concerned,  religion, 
morality,  mercy,  good  feeling  had  no  place  whatever  with  the 
governing  class.  Freedom  for  them  meant  the  unlimited  right 
to  suppress  the  economic  and  social  freedom  of  the  mass  of  their 
fellow-countrypeople,  and  to  crush  down,  imprison,  torture  or 
hang  all  who  dared  to  champion  the  rights  and  welfare  of  the 
mass  of  the  people  against  this  baleful  supremacy.  For  the 
greater  part  of  this  half-century  or  more  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  the  Press,  freedom  of  combination  were  to  a  large 
extent  quite  illusory  freedoms ;  and  when  admitted  in  name  they 
were  suppressed  in  reality.  Men  who  agitated  for  some  reason- 
able and  beneficial  social  reforms  were  arrested  and  imprisoned 
for  words  they  never  uttered.  Others  were  transported  for  life, 
and  not  a  few  were  hanged  for  treason  which  they  never  com- 
mitted, on  evidence  that  would  not  bear  the  slightest  impartial 
examination.  Political  influence  the  people  had  none.  'The 
House  of  Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords  were  both  against 
giving  even  a  modicum  of  the  suffrage  to  the  workers.  All  such 
legal  outlet  as  existed  for  the  ventilation  of  grievances  could 
be,  and  often  was,  stopped.  Men  who  publicly  attacked 
the  capitalists  and  their  Government  under  such  circum- 
stances did  so  at  the  risk  of  their  liberty  and  even  of  their 
lives.  Nor  did  the  various  administrations  hesitate  to  resort 
to  the  lowest  treachery,  in  order  to  provoke  the  people  into 
action  where  success  was  impossible,  and  repression  could  be 
safely  exercised,  or  to  suborn  spies  and  traitors  who  could  be 
relied  upon  to  betray  plots  which  did  not  exist. 

Hence,  I  repeat,  there  never  was  a  time,  even  under  the  most 
ruthless  tyranny,  when  "  direct  action,"  or  revolt  against  the 
possessing  classes,  could  be  more  justly  defended  than  in  those 
terrible  days  in  Great  Britain.  A  new  and  dreadful  slavery  had 
been  constituted,  from  which  there  was  no  escape  and  no  relief. 
Penal  servitude  for  life  for  adults,  overwork  and  crushing 
physical  conditions  for  women,  tortures  and  working  to  death  for 
children.  No  leisure,  no  pleasure,  no  education.  Constant  anxiety 
that  even  the  miserable  weekly  pittance,  barely  sufficient  to 


278  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

keep  body  and  soul  together,  might  be  withdrawn,  owing  to  the 
installation  of  new  improved  machinery  and  consequent  "  o\  cr 
production."  And  all  this  hideous  Malebolge  of  despair,  into 
which  the  victims  of  capitalism  had  been  suddenly  plunged, 
came  upon  our  people  almost  unprepared.  They  had  not  grown 
up  in  this  state  of  things,  like  the  slaves  and  serfs  who  were  their 
economic  ancestors.  Therefore  they  felt  their  sufferings  the  more. 
If  ever  violent  revolution  seemed  not  only  rightful  but  probably 
successful,  then  was  the  time.  The  dominant  class  was  un- 
popular and  ill-mannered.  Its  brutality  was  recognised.  The 
force  at  its  disposal  through  the  Government  was  by  no  means 
overwhelming.  The  numbers  of  the  wage-earners  in  proportion 
to  the  sections  of  society  which  lived  upon  their  labour  were 
larger  than  they  have  ever  been  since.  Everything  seemed 
favourable  to  a  great  and  victorious  uprising  of  the  people 
against  unbearable  wrongs. 

Moreover,  the  opportunity  for  such  an  upheaval  was  ever 
present.  Just  as  the  ruthless  pressure  of  profiteering  capitalism 
was  beginning  to  be  seriously  felt,  the  twenty  years'  war  with 
Napoleon  began.  In  all  probability  the  political  and  economic 
position  of  the  wage  slaves  might  have  been  considerably  im- 
proved had  the  great  Corsican  won.  The  mass  of  the  popula- 
tion had  absolutely  nothing  whatever  to  lose.  Certainly  the  war 
gave  the  oppressed  class  a  better  chance — not  of  complete  eman- 
cipation, for  which  the  economic  development  was  unfortunately 
not  ripe — but  at  least  of  putting  the  fear  of  man  into  the  hearts  of 
their  worst  enemies  at  home,  and  of  establishing  forthwith  those 
limited  improvements  which  were  not  even  begun  in  earnest 
until  nearly  half-a-century  later.  To  talk  of  patriotism  was 
preposterous,  in  view  of  the  conditions  of  the  workers  sum- 
marised above  from  official  reports. 

Yet  success  was  not  to  be.  The  mass  of  our  people,  ill-educated 
and  ignorant  as  they  are  now,  were  far  worse  informed  then. 
Their  means  of  communication  were  still  very  bad,  thus  render- 
ing a  widely  organised  revolt  extremely  difficult.  There  was  no 
general  military  training,  and  arms  were  not  readily  procurable. 
Trade  unionism  was  in  its  infancy,  and  trade  combinations  as 
far  as  possible  were  repressed  by  law.  No  recognised  portion 
of  the  clergy  took  the  side  of  the  workers  and  kept  the 
local  rebels  in  touch  with  one  another,  as  the  "  hedge  priests," 


USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL    279 

Ball  and  others  did,  centuries  before,  during  the  Peasants'  War. 
But  notwitlistanding  all  these  difficulties  a  partial  victory  might 
have  been  achieved  had  not  the  wage-earners,  through  their 
lack  of  education,  directed  their  attack  on  a  wholly  wrong  point. 

When  vastly  improved  machinery  is  introduced  into  any 
branch  of  production,  obviously  the  manual  craftsmen  in  that 
particular  industry  arc  liable  to  be  interfered  with  very  seriously 
indeed.  The  superior  efficiency  of  the  new  machine,  and  its 
consequent  abihty  to  turn  out  more,  and  therefore  cheaper, 
articles  with  much  less  himian  labour  than  before,  tends  to 
throw  men  and  women,  working  with  their  hands  on  the  old 
methods,  out  of  work,  and  to  reduce  the  wages  even  of  those 
who  continue  in  employment.  There  is  no  immediate  compen- 
sation for  this  dislocation,  nor  is  there  any  until  much  later, 
even  if  then.  Three  hundred  years  before  the  inventions  of 
Hargreaves,  Arkwright,  Cartwright  and  Jacquard  were  used 
as  practical  means  of  spinning  and  weaving  in  England,  the 
machine  of  a  foreign  inventor  was  destroyed  by  German 
weavers,  and  the  inventor  was  clubbed  to  death.  These 
weavers  saw  that  the  machine  threatened  the  well-being  of  their 
trade  by  cheaper  production,  and  took  the  shortest  and  to  their 
minds  the  most  practical  way  of  putting  an  end  to  a  mechanical 
device  which  must  promptly  put  their  hand  labour  at  a  dis- 
advantage. English  weavers  three  hundred  years  later  came 
to  the  same  conclusion  as  the  Germans.  They  smashed  up 
Everett's  machine,  as  stated,  in  1758,  and  Hargreaves'  in  1764. 
But  this  time  conditions,  economic  and  social,  being  ready  for 
the  adoption  of  the  improved  processes,  they  failed  to  check 
the  advance,  however  harmful  it  might  be  to  themselves,  by 
individual  or  local  destruction.  The  Juggernaut  car  of  human 
progress  was  too  well  equipped  to  be  arrested  by  such  primitive 
methods.  Machinery  made  way  rapidly  in  small  industrial 
centre  after  small  industrial  centre.  Cheaper  production  and 
more  effective  organisation  had  their  inevitable  influence. 
Skilled  cotton  and  wool  workers  were  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment, and  wages  were  rapidly  reduced  all  round. 

Thereupon,  instead  of  endeavouring  to  obtain  control  of  the 
machines — which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  could  not  have  done 
at  that  stage — instead  of  supporting  the  men  who  advocated 
strong  political  action — the  Duke  of  Richmond  brought  a  Bill 


280  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

for  universal  suffrage  into  the  House  of  Lords  in  1792 — great 
mobs  in  the  industrial  centres  attacked  the  machines  themselves, 
not  their  proprietors,  and  smashed  them  up.  Reasoning  as 
they  did  that  the  machines  were  the  cause  of  their  impoverish- 
ment, as  they  undoubtedly  were,  this  course  of  action  was  natural 
enough.  There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  machines  in  the 
cotton  and  wool  trades  were  being  used  against  the  interest  of 
the  workers,  were  reducing  their  wages,  lowering  their  standard 
of  life  and  weakening  their  economic  and  social  independence  all 
round.  This  opinion,  becoming  widely  spread  and  increasing 
in  vehemence  as  years  passed  on,  led  to  the  more  or  less  organised 
revolt  of  the  so-called  Luddites,  who  set  to  work  to  destroy 
the  machines  systematically,  partly  because  of  their  admitted 
economic  effect,  partly  because  they  belonged  to  the  masters, 
whom  the  wage-earners  regarded  with  justice  as  slave-drivers 
and  blood-suckers  of  the  worst  type — far  worse  in  everyway  than 
the  usurers  against  whom  laws  still  stood  on  the  Statute  Book, 
though  rarely  enforced.  Those  Luddites,  then,  destroyed 
machinery  and  burnt  factories  in  many  of  the  large  towns.  In 
Blackburn,  by  force  and  fire,  they  made  a  clean  sweep  of  the 
entire  machine  industry  ;  in  Nottingham  they  did  the  same, 
and  so  elsewhere.  Throughout  the  years  just  before  the  end  of 
the  war  the  state  of  things  became  really  serious.  In  1810  and 
1811  affairs  had  got  so  far  that  anarchistic  success  throughout 
the  factory  districts  seemed  possible. 

The  Government  was  alarmed,  and  used  all  the  means  that 
class  administrations  invariably  resort  to  when  the  rights  of 
property  are  threatened  in  order  to  suppress  incipient  insurrec- 
tion. Every  kind  of  repressive  expedient  was  brought  into 
service  to  crush  the  rebels.  Hangings  were  common,  imprison- 
ment of  suspected  persons  became  the  rule,  spies  and  what  the 
French  call  agents  of  provocation  were  used  to  incite  rioting, 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  excuse  for  relentless  reaction,  and 
could  be  found  in  numbers  in  all  the  manufacturing  centres. 
Favourable  as  events  seemed  to  the  rioters  and  revolutionists, 
they  failed  to  shake  the  power  of  the  dominant  classes  and  their 
representatives.  It  was  not  even  necessary  to  repeal  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act,  though  all  the  time  the  results  of  the  war  were  by 
no  means  encouraging,  and  the  spirit  of  revolution  was,  to  all 
appearances,  rife  throughout  the  country.     Lack  of  compre- 


USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL    281 

hension  of  the  economic  facts  around  them,  defective  organisa- 
tion all  tliroiigh,  want  of  really  capable  leaders,  inability  to  stir 
the  country  at  large  to  a  sense  of  the  harm  being  done,  and  the 
mistake  of  directing  their  main  attacks  on  machinery,  instead 
of  upon  the  political  and  social  causes  of  oppression,  ruined  the 
entire  movement.  It  is  very  doubtful,  however,  whether  com- 
plete success,  as  already  suggested,  could  have  been  achieved  in 
any  case.  Unpleasant  though  it  is  to  accept  the  conclusion,  it 
is  clear  that  in  this  instance,  as  in  others,  revolts  against  a  rising 
economic  system,  as  capitalism  undoubtedly  was  at  this  date, 
cannot  by  themselves  anticipate  the  com^e  of  the  entire  evolu- 
tion. Such  %'iolent  protests  do  unquestionably  rouse  the 
popular  intelligence,  and  keep  alive  that  sense  of  freedom 
and  desire  for  independence  which  lead  the  way  to  complete 
transformation,  when  the  general  development  has  been 
unconsciously  made  ready  for  the  next  great  change.  But  until 
then  the  noblest  pioneers  must  be  content  to  do  their  work  and 
sacrifice  their  lives  for  the  sake  of  generations  to  come. 

There  was  another  and  more  formidable  series  of  outbreaks 
of  discontent  and  accompanying  attempts  at  violence  when  the 
war  came  to  an  end.  The  peace  of  1815,  and  the  reactionary 
poUcy  of  the  Government  which  followed,  made  the  condition 
of  the  people  still  worse  than  it  was  before.  Poverty  and  oppres- 
sion of  the  most  fearful  description  pervaded  the  whole  country. 
From  one  end  of  Great  Britain  to  another  agitation  went  on,  in 
spite  of  all  the  persecution  that  followed,  and  great  meetings 
were  held,  at  which  demands  were  urged  and  resolutions  passed 
in  favour  of  a  complete  revolution.  Even  London,  which  had 
not  felt  the  pressure  of  the  factory  industry  to  any  considerable 
extent,  was  stirred.  The  enactment  of  the  Corn  Laws  which, 
in  1815,  disallowed  any  import  of  com  imtil  the  price  had 
reached  80s.  a  quarter,  provoked  Londoners  to  action,  and  the 
metropolis  rose  in  open  revolt.  So  threatening  was  the  aspect 
of  affairs  that  in  1817  the  Government  suspended  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act.  A  large  portion  of  the  middle  class  was  provoked, 
by  this  and  other  repressive  proceedings,  to  make  common  cause 
with  the  incensed  people.  In  the  face  of  every  danger  of 
imprisonment  and  execution,  downright  subversive  opinions, 
which  would  be  accounted  revolutionary  even  to-day,  a  hundred 
years  afterwards,  were  publicly  expressed  throughout  the  length 


282  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  breadth  of  the  land.     There  was  no  effective  political  outlet 
for  the  discontent  even  of  the  well-to-do. 

From  1815  to  the  passing  of  the  middle-class  Reform  Bill  of 
1832  the  country  was  in  one  continuous  tiu'moil.  That  Bill 
was  a  miserable  compromise.  It  crippled  the  power  of  the 
aristocrats  and  swept  away  some  of  the  political  corruption, 
but  it  handed  over  Great  Britain  to  an  even  more  insidious 
domination  than  that  of  the  class  whose  rule  was  shaken. 

Under  their  new  Poor  Law  the  poverty-stricken  people  be- 
came criminals,  in  much  the  same  sense  as  the  masterless  men 
of  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth.  They  were  swept 
into  workhouses  which  were  no  better  than  ill-found  gaols.  Yet, 
though  there  were  risings  and  revolts  and  secret  societies  and 
anarchist  propaganda  of  direct  action,  there  was  still  no  revolu-; 
tion.  Though  leaders  were  now  coming  to  the  front  of  the 
highest  ability  and  character,  though  the  speeches  made,  and 
the  fly  sheets  distributed  by  tens  of  thousands,  were  of  the  most 
incendiary  character,  the  people  at  large  were  still  more  difficult 
to  rouse  to  political  or  forcible  action  than  they  were  in  the 
earlier  years  of  the  century.  In  fact  the  Luddites,  with  their 
systematic  attacks  on  machinery  and  the  factories  which  housed 
it,  were  the  most  effective  and  best  organised  agents  of  attack 
upon  capital  and  machine-aided  wage  slavery  up  to  1832-1833. 

This  is  remarkable,  since  the  popiilar  political  and  economic 
writings  of  the  time  showed  the  clearest  possible  conception 
of  the  real  functions  of  profiteering  capital.  They  prove  how 
recent  was  its  growth,  how  merciless  its  operation  on  the  well- 
being  of  the  people,  how  destitute  of  all  morality  in  its  social 
relations,  and  how  futile  any  assaults  upon  its  power  would  be 
which  did  not  succeed  in  substituting  control  by  the  workers 
and  wage-earners  for  the  overlordship  of  this  class.  A  careful 
study  of  the  pamphlets,  books  and  orations  they  issued  on 
behalf  of  the  wage-earners,  proves  to  demonstration  that  the 
leaders  of  that  date  were  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  knowledge 
that  the  toilers  had  now  become  the  human  tools  of  the  owners 
of  the  means  of  production ;  that  wage  slavery  was  merely 
chattel  slavery  in  disguise  ;  that  though  workers  as  individuals 
had  ceased  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  special  slave  or  serf  owners  as 
individuals,  yet  wage-earners,  as  a  class,  were  the  slaves  of  the 
capitalists  as  a  class,  the  only  freedom  they  possessed  being  a 


USELESS  REVOLTS  AGAINST  CAPITAL    283 

right,  by  no  means  always  easily  exercised,  of  changing  their 
masters.  Their  miserable  wages  were  the  inevitable  result  of 
their  lack  of  property.  "  A  slave,"  wrote  Cobbett,  "  is  a  man 
who  possesses  no  property." 

In  spite  of  all  these  vigorous  and  unwearying  efforts,  by  a 
series  of  noble  and  disinterested  agitators,  to  instruct  and  move 
their  countrymen,  not  until  1834  to  1838  did  the  first  really 
organised  and  class-conscious  working-men's  combination  in 
Great  Britain  take  shape.  This  was  the  famous  Chartist  Move- 
ment, the  records  of  which  have,  as  far  as  possible,  been 
suppressed  and  kept  under  by  the  literary  representatives  of 
the  classes  in  possession.  So  true  is  it  that  all  history  up  to  the 
present  time  has  to  be  rewritten,  and  all  the  terrible  facts  of  the 
past  of  the  human  race  revealed  in  their  true  proportion,  before 
we  can  hope  to  master  the  truth  about  the  long  martyrdom  of 
man,  from  the  break-up  of  the  gentile  and  communal  period, 
onwards,  to  the  forms  of  private-property  production  and  ex* 
change.  In  all  this,  for  the  most  part,  ethic  has  no  say ;  human 
sympathy  plays  little  or  no  part.  For  the  mass  of  the  people 
it  is  ever  the  same.  Each  generation  in  turn  enters  upon  its 
mournful  heritage  of  suffering,  and  passes  on  its  burden  of 
never-ending  sorrow  to  the  next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next. 

What  closes  the  eyes  of  the  many  to  the  inevitable  outcome 
of  slow  and  relentless  evolution  ?  Why  is  it  that  even  the 
ablest  and  best  thinkers  of  the  period  are  unable  to  understand 
or  to  foresee  ?  How  does  it  come  about  that,  in  our  own  country, 
where  our  boasted  liberty  is  held  up  as  a  lesson  to  the  world, 
leaders  and  people  have  alike  failed  to  apprehend  fully,  or 
to  control  and  handle  effectively,  the  evolution  of  the  economic 
forms  and  social  domination  which  have  grown  up  under  their 
eyes  ?  The  right  answer  to  these  questions  may  never  be  given. 
Certain  it  is  that,  looking  down  the  centuries,  we  see  mankind  as 
a  whole  slowly  groping  their  way,  unconsciously  and  incapably, 
through  the  thick  forest  and  brushwood  of  prejudice  and 
ignorance,  dragging  the  car  of  progress,  which  must  eventually 
crush  them,  wearily  in  their  track. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  LIMITS  OF  HISTORIC  DETERMINISM 

There  were  three  great  and  original  books  written  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Their  authors  were  EngHsh,  German  and 
American.  Darwin's  Origin  oj  Species,  Marx's  Kapital,  and 
Morgan's  Ancient  Society  constituted  an  epoch  in  the  progress 
of  human  knowledge  and  thought.  Unfortunately,  owing  to 
the  prejudices  of  the  dominant  class  in  all  civilised  countries 
with  regard  to  private  property  and  the  origin  and  permanence 
of  the  monogamous  family,  the  two  latter  did  not  immediately 
obtain  the  general  recognition  which  accompanied  the  publica- 
tion of  the  first.  Even  now,  for  example,  educated  Americans 
are  often  found  who  do  not  recognise  the  eminence  of  Lewis  H. 
Morgan.  Persistent  efforts  have  been  made  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic  to  belittle  and  misrepresent  the  economic  theories 
and  historical  surveys  of  Karl  Marx,  whose  works  are,  neverthe- 
less, more  studied  to-day  than  ever.  That  is  to  say,  now,  thirty- 
seven  years  after  their  author's  death,  sixty  years  after  the 
appearance  of  his  first  important  work,  Zur  Kritik  der  Politis- 
chen  (Ekonomie,  and  nearly  as  long  since  the  publication  of  the 
first  volume  of  Das  Kapital,  Marx's  theories  and  analyses  are 
not  only  widely  accepted,  as  the  foundation  of  sound  economic 
teaching,  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  but  even  in  our  English 
universities — always  the  last  seats  of  learning  to  consider  any 
new  views  on  political  economy — ^his  investigations  can  no 
longer  be  advantageously  boycotted.  No  doubt  the  fact  that 
Marx  was  an  active  revolutionist  as  well  as  a  powerful  thinker, 
and  a  virulent  denouncer  of  the  frightful  inhumanity  engendered 
by  capitalism,  wage  slavery  and  the  entire  system  of  produc- 
tion for  profit,  affected  the  judgment  of  the  educated  champions 
of  the  class  which  he  attacked.  They  could  not  separate  his 
economies  and  sociology  from  his  revolutionary  propaganda 
and  pamphlets. 

Examining  any  human  society  in  the  long  progress  of  man- 

284 


LIMITS  OF  HISTORIC  DETERMINISM      285 

kind,  from  the  earliest  times  upwards,  we  find  that,  taken  as  a 
whole,  it  is  influenced  and  moulded  by  the  manner  in  which  its 
members  produce  their  food,  manufacture  their  raiment,  build 
and  decorate  their  houses,  construct  their  vessels,  and  obtain 
the  large  or  small  articles  of  luxury  which  they  desire.  That 
is  to  say,  the  foundation  of  an  association  of  human  beings  is 
the  method  of  creating  and  distributing  wealth  at  the  period 
when  we  examine  into  its  constitution.  Customs,  laws,  re- 
ligions, forms  of  worship,  arts  and  culture  generally,  grow  out 
of  the  means  of  satisfying  the  collective  and  individual  needs 
of  the  commimity.  The  members  of  the  society  in  the  early 
days  are  themselves  so  completely  a  part  of  the  entire  structure 
that  they  accept  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  bom,  and 
Uve  in  the  relations  to  which  they  are  accustomed  from  their 
birth,  ignorant,  for  the  most  part,  whence  they  came  or  whither 
they  are  going.  The  movement  within  the  society  or  com- 
munity, if  movement  there  be,  is  wholly  unconscious.  Men  and 
women,  under  such  conditions,  are  merely  sentient  automata, 
guided  by  their  social  and  almost  instinctive  customs.  Their 
relations  to  other  men  and  their  families  are  regulated,  unknown 
to  them,  by  the  material  facts  of  their  surroundings  and  social 
inheritance,  which  they  are  unable  to  understand  or,  consciously, 
to  modify. 

When,  however,  these  material  conditions  of  producing  and 
distributing  wealth  undergo  a  change,  then  the  whole  of  the 
other  relations  built  up  upon  the  previous  methods  of  satisfying 
social  needs  must,  in  the  long  run,  be  transforaied  also.  Thus 
the  modifications  in  material  conditions  and  methods  of  pro- 
duction, unnoticed  at  the  time  and  unconsciously  accepted,  act 
upon  the  whole  of  the  human  relations  which  make  up  the  entire 
supersti-ucture  of  the  society,  in  the  body  of  which  these  modi- 
fications and  changes  have  occurred.  Customs,  laws,  political 
institutions  and  all  the  arrangements  which  were  previously 
regarded  as  unchangeable  and  permanent,  must  now  submit  to 
such  alteration  as  may  bring  them  into  harmony  with  the  fresh 
economic  forms.  A  new  society  has  been  growing  up  in  the 
old  society,  which  in  due  time  must  force  the  old  society  to  re- 
volutionise itself,  whether  the  members  of  that  society  desire  to 
do  so  or  not.  What  had  previously  been  generally  advantage- 
ous now  becomes  harmful.     What  had  before  ensured  peace 


286  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

now  tends  to  engender  war.  What  was  a  pleasing  conservatism 
now  shows  itself  as  obstructive  hindrance  or  downright  reaction. 
No  portion  of  the  existing  human  relations  can  permanently 
withstand  the  current  of  change,  thus  brought  about  by  the  simple 
development  of  the  modified  forms  of  material  creation  of  wealth. 

So  the  process  goes  on  from  age  to  age,  from  generation  to 
generation,  sometimes  so  slowly  that  the  forms  of  the  existing 
system  seem  destined  to  endure  for  ever,  sometimes  with  greater 
rapidity,  but  always  very  gradually.  Every  age  and  each 
successive  generation  believes  that  its  own  social  relations  will 
continue  as  they  are,  even  when  the  material  relations  of  produc- 
tion below  have  already  doomed  them  as  obsolete.  Communal 
society,  chattel  slave  society,  serf  society,  free  individual 
society,  bourgeois  society — all  except  communal  society  having 
their  special  gradation  of  classes,  with  their  mutual  antagonisms 
— each  in  turn  regarded  themselves  as  the  last  irremovable  form 
of  human  society.  It  was  both  futile  and  criminal,  they  thought, 
for  the  classes  representing  the  new  economic  forms  to  try  to 
overthrow,  or  even  greatly  to  alter,  the  existing  social  relations. 
Thus  men  thmk  with  reference  to  the  bourgeois,  or  capitalist 
competitive  wage  slave  society  under  which  we  live  to-day. 
But  here,  too,  the  economic  material  relations  have  changed,  are 
changing  and  will  change.  This  will  inevitably  lead  to  a  trans- 
formation of  the  entire  social  superstructure,  consequent  on 
the  substitution  of  new  forms  for  old,  the  abolition  of  wage 
slavery,  and  the  establishment  of  co-operation  without  classes. 

That  in  the  main  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Material  Development 
of  History,  or  the  theory  of  historical  determinism,  which  has  so 
widely  influenced  opinion  of  late  years  in  the  growing  Socialist 
movement.  Its  more  vehement  advocates  have  put  this  theory 
forward  as  the  solution  of  all  the  problems  of  human  society : 
the  philosopher's  stone  of  all  social  investigation.  But  this 
view  cannot  be  accepted  as  any  full  explanation  of  human  de- 
velopment. For  we  find  that  forms  of  production  in  agricul- 
tural communities,  which  remained  unchanged  for  hundreds  and 
even  thousands  of  years,  accommodated  themselves  to  widely 
different  social  superstructures.  Thus,  in  China  and  in  India 
the  main  forms  of  small  production  on  the  land  and  in  handi- 
craft are  almost  precisely  similar.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
two  systems  of  association  and  government  more  widely  differ- 


LIMITS  OF  HISTORIC  DETERMINISM      287 

ent  than  those  subsisting  in  these  two  great  and  populous 
empires.  In  China  there  are  no  castes,  no  fixed  and  inunutable 
creeds,  no  wide  dissemination  of  the  precious  metals  on  a  large 
scale,  ahnost  universal  education  and  no  warrior  spirit.  In 
India  everything  is  totally  different.  Caste,  religion,  general 
lack  of  education  prevail,  and  wars  were  the  rule  rather  than 
the  exception,  prior  to  the  European  conquest.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  say  that  here  forms  of  production  governed,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  the  shape  of  the  society  above.  The  same 
forms  resulted  in  quite  other  social  relationships,  and  this  not 
for  a  short  period  but  for  generations.  Similar  and  almost 
equally  striking  illustrations  can  be  drawn  from  the  contrast 
between  Egypt  and  Italy,  where,  apart  from  the  difference  of 
climate,  the  same  small  culture  resulted  m  highly  contrasted 
social  forms. 

Moreover,  we  have  a  striking  example  of  the  impossibility  of 
accepting  this  general  rule  in  the  position  of  France  and  England. 
From  the  economic  standpoint,  France  is  still  two  or  three 
generations  at  least  behind  Great  Britain.  Consequently,  her 
political  development  ought  to  be  similarly  behindhand.  But 
it  is  quite  the  reverse.  France,  with  small  peasant  proprietor- 
ship controlling  her  chief  industry,  agriculture,  and  still  in  the 
early  stage  of  the  great  factory  industry,  is  a  long  way  in 
advance  of  Great  Britain  politically.  Her  entire  political  con- 
stitution is,  indeed,  adapted  to  a  far  liigher  economic  develop- 
ment than  she  has  attained.  Though,  therefore,  economic  forms, 
inherited  from  the  long  past,  do  greatly  and  inevitably  influence 
human  development,  and,  in  a  period  of  rapid  change  of  forms 
of  production  below,  such  as  that  of  the  last  two  centuries  or 
more,  the  conflict  between  these  modifications  and  the  older 
methods  is  reflected  in  social  antagonisms ;  yet  the  exceptions 
are  so  marked,  in  earher  epochs  of  human  history,  and  extend 
over  such  vast  areas  of  time,  that  it  is  impossible  to  accept  the 
theory  in  its  full  meaning.  Many  other  circumstances  besides 
mere  forms  of  production  have  to  be  taken  into  consideration. 

Furthermore,  there  is  another  important  element  which  is 
overlooked  when  the  purely  material  monist  theory  of  history  is 
forced  upon  us.  Thus  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  general 
material  progress  of  mankind  is  unconscious.  Hitherto  men 
have  not  been  able,  by  understandmg  thoroughly  the  course  of 


288  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

their  social  evolution,  to  forecast  their  own  immediate  future, 
and  lay  scientific  plans  for  the  next  stages  in  the  development 
of  the  race.  So  far,  it  is  clear,  from  the  survey  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  that  mankind  has  been  dominated  by  its  own  uncon- 
scious growth.  But  this  does  not  show  that  all  the  movements 
of  our  ancestors  have  been  wholly  engendered  by  material  causes, 
or  that  all  collective  actions  have  been  entirely  divorced  from 
psychologic  motives,  as  the  extreme  monists  contend.  Granting 
even  that  economic  causes  account  for  many,  if  not  most,  of  the 
great  changes  in  human  affairs  and  human  conceptions,  never- 
theless, when  society  has  arrived  at  a  certain  level,  human  psycho- 
logy, running  side  by  side  with  human  development,  generally 
also  has  its  share  in  historic  movements.  Arising  out  of  society, 
with  the  material  economic  conditions  functioning  throughout, 
this  psychologic  tendency  exercises  for  short,  and  sometimes  for 
relatively  long,  periods  the  dominant  influence.  There  are 
great  episodes  in  history  which  no  conceivable  manipulation  of 
the  material  theory  can  explain  without  taking  psychologic 
currents  into  account. 

In  this  respect  there  is  a  similarity  between  society  and  the 
individual.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  processes  of  individual 
human  life  are  automatic,  and  beyond  the  control  of  the  person 
whose  lungs,  liver,  stomach,  eyes,  ears,  spleen,  etc.,  do  their 
material  work  independently,  in  the  main,  of  his  volition. 
But  out  of  this  sentient  automatism  a  psychologic  element  is 
engendered  in  the  highest  mammals,  which  subsists  in  our  own 
consciousness,  has  a  reflex  action  upon  the  functions  of  the  body 
of  which  it  is  itself  a  higher  function,  and  comes  within  the  scope 
of  the  individual  mind  and  reason,  as  we  speak  of  such  action  in 
its  own  being.  This  is  not  an  element  of  the  human  animal 
outside  matter.  But  it  is  related  to  matter  in  a  different  sense 
from  the  heart  or  the  lungs,  or  even  the  instincts. 

So  with  society.  The  minor  operations  of  mere  collectivity 
in  society  are  unconscious  and  involuntary.  This  was  more  so 
in  the  past  than  it  is  to-day.  But  throughout  history  there  have 
been  cases  where  large  numbers  of  people  have  been  induced  to 
do  things  which,  whether  advantageous  or  disadvantageous 
to  them,  justifiable  or  unjustifiable  to  their  neighbours,  cannot 
be  put  down  as  due  to  material  influences  pure  and  simple. 
That  is  to  say,  at  particular  moments,  though  the  material  de- 


LIMITS  OF  HISTORIC  DETERMINISM    289 

velopment  goes  on  as  before,  the  psychologic  influence,  whatever 
it  may  be  and  wliencesoever  it  may  arise,  becomes  for  the  time 
being  the  dominating  factor.  Examples  of  the  psychologic,  as 
overcoming  the  economic  factor,  on  a  large  scale,  are  not  far  to 
seek.  From  the  individual  Malay  who  runs  amok  out  of  re- 
ligious mania  to  the  rise  of  the  great  Mohammedan  religion  is 
a  very  long  way.  The  one  we  stigmatise  as  temporary  lunacy, 
the  other  is  one  of  the  greatest  episodes  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. It  would  be  difficult  to  attribute  either  wholly  and  solely 
to  the  material  evolution  of  the  individual  or  of  the  collection  of 
tribes.  The  effect  of  the  religion  of  Mohammed  was  tremendous 
from  the  beginning,  and  its  influence,  still  unexhausted,  has  ex- 
tended over  many  centuries.  Yet  at  the  time  when  the  founder 
of  the  reUgion  first  preached  his  creed,  the  Arabs  of  pure  race 
were  living  the  hfe  which  their  ancestors  had  lived  for  hundreds, 
and  even  thousands,  of  years  before.  No  change  whatever  had 
taken  place  in  their  forms  of  production,  pastoral  or  agricultural, 
for  generations.  None  can  be  traced  in  action,  when  the 
Prophet  of  Allah  made  his  appearance.  Certainly,  as  Arabs, 
they  were  exercising  no  great  influence  upon  the  history  or 
the  development  of  the  adjacent  countries.  The  old  fetishist 
idolatry  and  the  old  tribal  customs  remained  as  they  had  ever 
been.     The  aristocratic  Arab  gentes  were  still  in  control. 

Mohammed  was  a  personally  impoverished  member  of  one  of 
these  aristocratic  gentes.  The  whole  of  the  Arab  tribes  together, 
extending  over  a  wide  expanse  of  by  no  means  fertile  territory, 
amounted  to  fewer  than  15,000,000  souls,  women  and  children 
included.  There  was  nothing  whatever  to  show  that  this  race 
was  ready  for  one  of  the  greatest  movements  of  aggression  and 
conquest  the  world  has  yet  seen  ;  nor  were  there  any  economic 
grounds  at  all  that  could  account  for  the  preaching  and  spread 
of  a  powerful  new  religion.  If  ever  in  human  history  the 
foundation  and  promulgation  of  a  fighting  creed  was  the  work 
of  one  man,  the  faith  of  Islam  was  the  work  of  Mohammed. 
He  himself  converted  first  his  own  family — no  easy  matter — and 
then,  in  spite  of  stupendous  difficulties,  persuaded  his  tribesmen, 
partly  by  force  and  partly  by  persuasion,  to  adopt  the  watch- 
word of  Allah,  the  one  God,  and  Mohammed,  his  Prophet.  For 
Mohammed,  though  he  gathered  round  him  able  and  devoted 
followers,  had  no  Saul  of  Tarsus  to  take  up,  to  organise,  and  to 


290  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

philosophise  his  teachings.  The  whole  propaganda  hinged  upon 
himself.  It  was  not  a  religion  of  plunder  at  the  start.  It  was  a 
blind  enthusiasm,  divorced  from  any  economic  or  material 
motive,  a  faith  that  removed  mountains.  All  the  ingenuity 
in  the  world  will  not  accommodate  this  tremendous  awakening 
of  the  Arabs  to  pure  material,  historic  determinism. 

When  I  was  discussing  the  matter  with  Plechanoff,  perhaps 
the  ablest  champion  of  the  complete  determinist  theory,  he 
argued  that  Mohammedanism  might  be  an  apparent  excep- 
tion to  the  general  rule,  which,  with  wider  knowledge,  could 
be  harmonised  with  the  full,  unmodified  Marxian  theory. 
But  that  was  a  very  wide  assumption.  Not  only  Mohammed 
himself,  but  Mohammedans,  throughout  the  early  days  of 
their  astounding  victories,  fought  their  best  when  the  ele- 
ment of  material  gain  was  entirely  eliminated,  and  they 
sacrificed  their  lives  for  God  and  his  Prophet  with  the  con- 
sciousness that  in  dying  in  such  a  cause  Paradise  would  be 
their  eternal  portion.  But  if  that  accords  with  economic 
determinism,  then  words  and  thoughts  have  no  clear  meaning. 

Here  we  have  a  distinct,  and  curiously  powerful  psychologic 
or  religious  influence,  which,  basing  itself  on  a  Monotheism  ex- 
pounded by  one  individual,  who  made  no  pretension  to  being 
in  any  way  other  than  a  man,  who  claimed  no  miraculous 
powers  whatever,  and  had  no  cohort  of  male  and  female  saints 
to  conduct  his  believers  in  safety  to  Elysium,  nevertheless  so 
inspired  his  race  with  a  belief  in  his  religion  that  they  could  not 
refrain  from  going  forth  to  propagate  his  doctrines  with  exhorta- 
tion, fire  and  sword.  So  far  did  they  carry  matters  on  this 
non-material  basis  that,  within  a  hundred  years,  they  had  con- 
quered region  after  region  far  more  numerously  peopled  than 
their  own,  sometimes  with  inhabitants  who,  before  the  advent 
of  these  fanatics,  had  shown  themselves  vigorous  warriors,  and 
were  better  equipped  for  battle  than  the  Mohammedans  who 
attacked  and  defeated  them. 

Again,  we  may  take  the  antagonistic  movement  to  this  Mo- 
hammedanism which  came  centuries  later.  Can  any  reasonable 
man  contend  that  the  hermit  Peter  and  those  who  first  went 
forth  with  him  were  inspired  with  conceptions  of  wealth  to  be 
gained  by  retaking  Jerusalem  from  the  infidel  ?  The  very  idea 
is  absurd.     Those  crowds  who  followed  the  Christian  illusionist 


LIMITS   OF  HISTORIC  DETERMINISM    291 

were  filled  full  of  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God  and  His  Christ — ^His 
Christ  who  had  been  crucified  in  the  great  Jewish  city  many 
centuries  before,  in  order  to  save  them  from  eternal  fire.  It  was 
an  outrage  that  tliis  Holy  City,  about  the  history  of  which  they 
knew  little  or  nothing,  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  infideU 
Therefore  they  went  forth  from  their  homes,  and  perished  by  the 
thousand  of  famine  and  disease  before  they  had  got  a  tenth  part 
of  the  way  to  their  destination,  where  if  they  had,  by  some 
miracle,  arrived,  they  would  have  been  slaughtered  like  sheep. 
These  men,  women  and  children  were  not  impelled  upon  their 
bootless  and  ruinous  mission  by  any  form  of  economic  or 
material  influence.  Obviously,  they  were  smitten  with  religious 
hallucmation,  exterior  to  all  desire  for  material  gain.  Historic 
determinism  had  no  voice  in  this  matter.  Knowing  all  the 
antecedents  even,  can  we  say,  in  the  early  Crusades,  or  in  the 
case  of  Mohammed,  that  we  could  have  predicted  this  immediate 
consequent  ? 

Here,  then,  are  two  great  movements  which  produced  an 
enormous  effect  on  their  time,  whose  history  is  well  known. 
Both  had  their  origin,  not  in  any  economic  cause,  or  modifica- 
tion in  the  forms  of  production,  but  in  purely  psychologic 
influences,  which,  though  arising  out  of  material  development, 
cannot  be  attributed  to  material  action  on  the  minds  of  those 
who  took  part  in  the  religious  manifestations. 

All  this  argument  would  be  quite  unnecessary,  but  for  the  fact 
that  the  extreme  monists  of  materialism  have  obtained  a  foUow- 
ing  for  their  rigid  detenmnism  which  will  not  bear  the  test  of 
examination.  Illuminating  as  the  theory  is  when  properly  in- 
terpreted, obvious  as  it  seems,  when  once  fully  stated,  that  the 
forms  of  production  do  constitute  the  main  basis  of  social  super- 
structures, the  whole  conception  is  made  ridiculous  when  its 
votaries  refuse  to  recognise  the  demonstrable  truth  that  similar 
forms  of  production  sometimes  have  wholly  dissimilar  govern- 
ments superimposed  upon  them.  The  fanatics  of  materialism 
divorced  from  mind,  who  are  as  superstitious  as  the  fanatics  of 
mind  divorced  from  matter,  damage  their  own  theory  when 
they  claim  to  solve  all  problems  with  this  single  key. 

But  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  leads  to  strange  perver- 
sions on  the  other  side.  Thus  the  class  antagonisms,  which 
inevitably  arise  out  of  the  economic  relations  of  modem  as  of 


292  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

ancient  society,  are  frequently  declared  to  be  inspired  by 
"  ambition  "  and  "  hatred."  Whereas  it  is  quite  impossible 
that  hatred  or  love  can  affect  the  progress  of  economics,  any 
more  than  they  can  the  problems  of  mathematics.  No  man 
at  present,  reading  of  the  sufferings  inflicted  upon  slaves  in  the 
mines  of  antiquity,  or  in  the  legal  torture  chambers  of  the  courts 
of  justice,  can  fail  to  be  horrified  at  such  atrocities ;  nor  can  he 
peruse  the  records  of  the  frightful  treatment  of  children  in  the 
Lancashire  cotton  mills  during  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  without  bitter  indignation  against  a  class  which  piled 
up  wealth  and  acquired  social  power  by  such  practices.  But  the 
majority  of  men  at  the  time  felt  no  indignation ;  and  we  our- 
selves are  used  to  cruelties  enacted  to-day  which  our  descendants 
will  hear  of  with  indignation  in  their  turn.  Human  pity  in- 
fluences but  slowly  the  pressure  of  the  economic  force  at  the 
disposal  of  the  dominant  class.  When  profitable  cruelty  is  put 
an  end  to  by  the  higher  ethic  of  an  advancing  society  in  one 
direction,  it  finds  an  outlet  in  another,  until  the  time  is  ripe 
for  a  complete  overthrow  of  the  system. 

Human  development,  we  are  told,  is  wholly  unconscious,  and 
men  in  society  still  nothing  better  than  sentient  automata.  If, 
knowing  all  the  antecedents,  we  are  infallibly  able  to  predict  with 
accuracy  the  immediate  consequent ;  if  the  antagonisms  of 
classes,  and  of  individuals  as  representatives  of  their  classes, 
are  eternal  under  existing  conditions  of  human  progress ;  if 
the  members  of  the  dominant  class  of  the  day  are,  Uke  the 
rest  of  mankind,  solely  creatures  of  the  surroundings  into 
which  they  are  born,  brought  up  and  trained ;  if,  finally,  it 
is  impossible  for  any  hmnan  being  to  rise  out  of  the  period 
that  sees  him  grow  up  and  develop — ^if  all  this  is  true,  as 
purely  material  monism,  divorced  from  psychology,  declares 
it  is,  then,  obviously,  there  is  nothing  moral  or  immoral  under 
the  sun.  Slave-drivers  of  old,  or  the  harshest  of  sweaters  of 
our  day,  were,  and  are,  no  more  responsible  for  their  actions 
than  sharks  or  alligators,  tigers  or  boa-constrictors.  Con- 
sequently, it  is  useless,  as  it  is  unscientific  and  unphilo- 
sophical,  to  denounce  malefactors  or  glorify  saints.  Jack  the 
Ripper  and  Sakya  Mouni  are  on  the  same  ethical  plane  ;  a  Con- 
fucius or  a  Faraday  is  no  better  than  a  Rasputin.  Each  and  all 
are  acting  upon  predetermined  lines  laid  down  for  them  by  their 


LIMITS   OF   HISTORIC   DETERMINISM     293 

surroundings  from  birth,  from  which  it  is  impossible,  given  the 
prior  conditions,  that  they  should  at  any  time  diverge.  Obvi- 
ously we  have  here  the  controversy  of  predestination  and  free 
will  transferred  materially,  from  the  mere  individual,  to  society 
at  large.  In  spite  of  the  undeniable  psychologic  current,  and  in- 
dividual examples  of  a  higher  ethic,  there  can,  according  to  this 
view,  be  no  individual  or  social  morahty  until  humanity  arrives 
at  the  stage  where  collective  and  social  influence  is  exercised  by 
society  as  a  whole ;  the  causes  of  immorality,  as  we  call  it,  being 
removed  by  social,  material  and  intellectual  conditions,  which 
remove  all,  or  nearly  aU,  inducements  to  anti-social  acts.  When 
this  level  of  material  development  is  reached  the  whole  problem 
of  human  relations  will  be  revolutionised.  The  Ten  Command- 
ments will  be  again  as  completely  "  out-of-date  "  as  they  would 
have  been  if  they  had  come  down  from  Sinai  in  the  old  com- 
munal period.  The  social  ethic,  that  is  to  say,  will  be  collec- 
tive and  communal,  as  property  and  wealth  become  conamunal 
and  collective.  Moreover,  under  such  social  collectivism  and 
co-operative  communism,  the  material  development  will  be 
reflected  in  the  mentality  of  the  society.  A  new  state  of  society 
^vill  bring  about  new  virtues  and  new  crimes.  But,  above  all, 
man  being  freed  from  care  as  to  material  needs,  psychology  will 
have  increasing  influence  upon  the  social  evolution. 

That  is  of  the  future.  But  does  it  follow  that  there  is  no 
psychologic  influence  or  conscious  action,  on  a  lower  plane,  in 
the  present  ?  Can  we  assert  that  there  has  been  no  such  in- 
fluence in  the  past  ?  This  would  be  to  accept  the  doctrine  that, 
as  the  extreme  monists  contend,  men  in  society  are  still  mere 
sentient  automata,  that  they  are  wholly  creatures  of  material 
conditions  which  they  are  powerless,  either  individually  or 
collectively,  to  modify,  or  to  react  upon,  and  that,  consequently, 
there  can  be  no  conscious  psychologic  element  in  existing  society 
at  all.  That  is  what  the  contentions  of  the  fanatics  of  historic 
determinism,  including  Kautsky,  when  pushed  to  extremities, 
virtually  amount  to.  But  this  is  directly  counter  to  human 
experience  in  more  than  one  direction.  Not  only  is  there 
manifestly  a  psychologic  current  in  human  affairs,  but  it  is 
gaining  in  relative  force,  as  mankind  gains  in  knowledge  and 
consciousness  of  its  surroundings  and  begettings.  Only  thus  can 
society  with  its  individuals,  and  individuals  with  their  society, 


294  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

intelligently  comprehend,  and,  by  comprehending,  increasingly 
and  capably  guide,  in  part  at  least,  their  own  development ; 
social  progress  being  admitted  as  the  growing  aim  and  object 
of  all.  What  may  be  the  limits  of  the  two  elements,  purely 
material  evolution  and  psychologic  influence,  we  may  be  un- 
able at  any  given  moment  to  determine,  but  that  the  latter 
cannot  safely  be  neglected  is  clear. 

A  survey  of  history  shows  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  antici- 
pate economic  evolution  by  forcible  action,  or  even  greatly  to 
accelerate  an  inevitable  economic  transformation  by  such  means. 
Those  who  made  these  attempts,  at  most,  brought  to  the  front 
ideals  which  kept  alive  the  hope,  and  strengthened  the  deter- 
mination of  the  oppressed  to  take  advantage  of  any  future  oppor- 
tunity for  successful  revolt.  On  the  other  hand,  the  loss  of 
leaders  with  knowledge,  courage  and  initiative  in  the  unsuccess- 
ful rising — and  leaders  of  this  character  are  indispensable  and 
not  easily  replaced — brings  about  a  period  of  discouragement 
among  the  survivors ;  while  sheer  reaction,  which  for  a  time 
crushes  down  progress,  may  also  be  the  result  of  such  failure. 
At  present,  when,  in  all  economically  advanced  countries,  and 
particularly  in  Great  Britain,  economically  the  most  advanced 
of  all,  the  comparatively  short-lived  capitalist  system  is  mani- 
festly making  way  for  collective  administration  and  communist 
and  co-operative  production  and  distribution,  it  is  more  than 
ever  essential  to  keep  these  things  in  mind. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  RISE  AND  FALL  OF  THE  CHARTIST  MOVEIVIENT 

There  are  periods  in  the  annals  of  Great  Britain  about  which 
the  truth  has  still  to  be  told  in  a  readable  shape.  This  is  cer- 
tainly the  case  with  the  Chartist  Movement.  Owing  to  the  fact 
that  all  the  histories  of  the  first  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  that  of  the  eventful  generation  from 
1815  to  1848  in  particular,  have  been  written  by  authors  wholly 
imbued  with  the  ideas  of  the  capitaUst  and  profiteering  middle 
class,  or  of  the  bourgeoisie  as  a  whole,  there  is  no  general  con- 
ception of  the  struggle  then  conducted  by  the  Chartists  and 
Radicals  on  behalf  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  details  of 
that  bitter  conflict  have  been  suppressed  in  the  interest  of  that 
class.  Consequently,  little  is  known  in  our  own  country  of  the 
widespread  democratic  and  Socialist  agitation,  which  anticipated 
most  of  the  social  and  poUtical  ideas  that  are  so  often  attributed 
to  foreigners.  Even  the  names  of  the  able,  enthusiastic,  self- 
sacrificing  and  persecuted  leaders  of  the  imceasing  social  and 
political  propaganda,  which  stirred  EngUsh  society  to  its  foimda- 
tions,  are  forgotten ;  and,  although  they  roused  the  spirit  of 
revolt  among  the  workers  as  it  has  never  been  roused  since,  the 
magnificent  service  they  rendered  is  ignored. 

Even  the  wage-earners  of  Great  Britain,  who  owe  nearly  all 
they  have  gained  to  the  Chartists,  in  the  first  instance,  feel  no 
gratitude  whatever  to  the  men  who  fought  and  fell  in  their 
splendid  fight  for  the  freedom  of  those  who  suffered  in  their  own 
day,  and  of  their  successors,  who  now  benefit  by  their  work. 
These  men  strove  for  the  complete  emancipation  of  the  wage- 
slave  class.  They  knew,  and  they  persistently  preached,  the 
great  truth,  that  wage  slavery  is  but  chattel  slavery  in  disguise. 
They  spared  no  effort  to  convince  their  countrymen  that  the 
ownership  of  property  lay  at  the  foundation  of  all  social  freedom 
as  of  all  social  domination,  and  that,  until  the  workers  of  a 
country  owned  the  property  collectively,  which  they  had  been 

a95 


296  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

wholly  deprived  of  individually,  real  personal  liberty  they  eoiild 
not  possibly  enjoy.  This  was  as  revolutionary  a  policy  as  any 
that  is  put  before  the  proletariat  of  any  country  at  the  present 
time. 

The  Chartists,  although  divided  in  opinion  on  more  than 
one  important  question,  held  together  on  the  imperative  neces- 
sity for  palliative  measures  of  the  capitalist  anarchy  prevailing 
all  around  them.  Even  the  physical  force  section,  as  opposed 
to  the  purely  political  section,  were  agreed  as  to  this.  They 
ran  terrible  risks  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  the  whole  of  their 
demands  ;  but  they  were,  as  a  party,  thoroughly  practical  and 
reasonable  in  their  readiness  and  anxiety  to  obtain  some 
portion  of  their  claims  at  once.  And  this  moderate  policy, 
from  the  capitalist  standpoint,  was  scarcely  less  dangerous  or 
more  criminal  than  the  extreme  view.  It  was  the  Chartists 
who  agitated  and  clamoured  and  threatened,  in  order  to  save 
babes  of  tender  years  from  being  overworked,  flogged  and 
half-starved  in  the  hideous  slave  dens,  that  the  factories  of  the 
Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  capitalists  then  were.  It  was  the 
Chartists,  and  the  noble  Socialist,  Robert  Owen,  who  first 
endeavoured  to  cut  down  by  law  the  excessive  and  physically 
ruinous  hours  of  labour  for  all  industrial  toilers.  It  was  the 
Chartists  who  worked,  with  the  then  small  and  feeble  trade 
unions,  to  secure  full  rights  of  combination  and  of  strikes  for 
the  workers  of  all  grades.  It  was  the  Chartists  who  never 
ceased  to  demand  a  free,  unlicensed  Press,  free  speech  and 
freedom  of  the  vote  for  all  male  adults.  It  was  the  Chartists 
who  persistently  pointed  out  to  the  people  that  Tory,  Whig, 
Liberal  and  Radical  were  only  labels  which,  however  much 
their  owners  might  differ  on  mere  political  issues,  counted  for 
little  or  nothing,  when  the  rightful  claims  of  the  people  to 
public  ownership  of  land  and  wealth  came  up  for  discussion. 

Before  entering  upon  a  brief  survey  of  the  political  work  they 
did,  it  is  well  to  describe  what  manner  of  men  they  were  who 
entered  upon  this  uphill  struggle,  to  recall  their  names  and  to 
show  the  desperate  difficulties  against  which  they  strove.  In 
any  other  country  than  Great  Britain  these  courageous  agitators 
would  be  regarded  as  the  heroes  of  the  proletariat,  martyrs  of 
the  rising  faith  in  the  co-operative  solidarity  of  the  whole  body 
of  workers.     In  England  they  failed  ;  and  glorious  failure  counts 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT  297 

for  nothing  during  a  competitive  age.  Yet  Fcargus  O'Connor, 
George  Julian  Harney,  Ernest  Jones,  Bronterre  O'Brien,  Sadler, 
Oastler,  Stephens,  Ball,  Lovett,  Henry  Vincent  and  their  associ- 
ates will  be  remembered,  and  their  good  deeds  recorded,  in  the 
new  development,  when  all  that  they  vainly  strove  for  before 
their  time  is  realised,  in  the  course  of  the  next  few  generations. 
They  were  capable  of  great  things  themselves,  and  they  prepared 
the  way  for  greater  things  for  others.  They  were  writers,  organ- 
isers and  orators  of  mark.  As  orators,  at  least  four  of  them  were 
equal  to  W.  H.  Fox,  John  Bright  or  VilUers,  while  their  ideals 
were  higher,  their  aspirations  nobler,  their  power  of  expression 
more  effective. 

The  memories  and  traditions  of  those  stirring  times  all 
agree  upon  this.  Such  enormous  crowds  as  were  held  spell- 
bound in  the  open  air  at  Kershal  Moor  and  elsewhere  by 
Stephens,  Ball  and  others  were  never  gathered  together  in 
England  before  or  since.  To  such  a  crowd  did  Stephens  address 
his  famous  declaration  that  the  subject  in  hand  for  the  men 
before  him  was,  in  reahty,  a  knife-and-fork  question  :  the 
material  must  precede  the  ideal  in  order  that  men  should  rise  to 
a  higher  conception  of  what  humanity  was  capable.  But  educa- 
tion was  essential  too.  Many  of  those  speeches  are  still  to  be 
found,  as  they  were  reported  at  the  time.  To  another  big 
audience  Bronterre  O'Brien,  when  asked  whether  the  capitalist 
did  not  work  as  well  as  his  wage-earners,  replied  :  "  Yes,  he 
works,  works  hard,  works  o'  nights.  So  does  the  wolf.  He 
works,  works  hard,  works  o'  nights.  But  the  harder  he  works, 
my  friend,  the  worse  it  is  for  the  sheep."  In  like  manner  Lovett 
spoke  and  wrote  strongly  and  sternly  as  to  the  position  of  the 
toilers  of  England.  Possessed  of  no  property  but  the  force  of 
labour  in  their  bodies,  they  were  the  slaves  of  the  men  who 
owned  all  else. 

The  dominant  class  was  furious  against  these  men.  Their 
speakers  and  writers  were  arrested,  condemned,  imprisoned, 
transported  for  life  time  after  time.  Little  chance  of  justice 
had  they  in  those  days.  Prejudiced  judges,  brutal  and  un- 
scrupulous barristers,  suborned  jui'ies  :  the  verdict  against  them 
was  assured,  and  their  punishment  settled  before  the  prisoners 
came  into  court.  Bronterre  O'Brien  was  condemned  to  two 
years'  imprisonment  for  words  which  it  was  afterwards  proved 


298  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

he  never  uttered.  With  others  the  same.  No  wonder  that, 
under  such  conditions,  with  their  Press  under  rigorous  restric- 
tions, with  charges  being  trumped  up  against  their  leaders, 
every  day,  some  of  the  hotter  heads  adjured  their  followers 
to  resort  to  force.  Stephens  himself,  like  several  others  a 
Wesleyan  minister,  appealed  to  one  of  his  vast  assemblies  to 
show  whether  they  were  ready  to  support  his  exhortations  by 
arms.  Hundreds  of  his  hearers  raised  muskets  aloft  in  their 
hands  to  show  that  they  were. 

Nor  were  local  revolts  under  arms  wholly  unsuccessful.  M. 
L^on  Faucher,  who  certainly  had  no  sympathy  with  Socialism, 
and  still  less  with  violent  upheavals,  writing  to  the  Temps  of  the 
seven  years  when  Chartist  effort  was  strongest,  declared  that 
Great  Britain  had  been  in  continuous  and  dangerous  upset 
during  the  whole  of  that  time.  Nottingham  Castle  attacked 
and  taken  by  rioters,  Birmingham  for  three  whole  days  in  the 
hands  of  "  the  mob,"  8000  to  10,000  miners  out  under  arms  in 
Wales,  on  account  of  the  arrest  and  condemnation  of  Henry 
Vincent,  and  persistent  unrest  throughout  the  industrial  dis- 
tricts of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire,  were  events  which  went  far 
to  justify  the  French  observer's  statement.  Of  course  the 
Government  took  strong  steps  to  suppress  these  disorders — 
which,  however,  were  entirely  due  to  its  own  neglect  of  the 
abominable  social  conditions,  and  its  refusal  to  apply  any  reason- 
able remedies.  Even  when  laws  were  passed  to  check  a  few  of 
the  more  notorious  abuses,  and  to  mitigate  in  some  degree  the 
horrors  of  the  factory  system,  the  ministry  of  the  day,  no  matter 
what  its  political  complexion,  winked  at  the  systematic  in- 
fringement of  its  own  ordinances  by  the  employers. 

As  things  were,  even  unorganised  and  prematiu*e  resorts 
to  violence  might  seem  excusable,  the  administration  of  the 
day  having  proved  itself  wholly  unwilling  to  act  fairly  by 
the  people.  It  is  still  the  fashion  to  say  that  our  forbears 
were  a  cool,  law-abiding,  long-suffering,  almost  servile  folk ; 
that,  however  monstrous  the  oppression  to  which  they  were 
subjected,  they  always  looked  to  peaceful  political  methods  alone 
to  obtain  any  partial  redress  or  to  secure  any  social  advance ; 
and  that  the  history  of  that  dismal  epoch,  prior  to  the  passing 
and  putting  into  operation  of  the  first  Factory  Acts,  offers 
marked  evidence  of  the  patience  and  resignation  of  the  English 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT  299 

people.  Nothing  can  be  more  contrary  to  the  truth.  The 
risings  and  riotings  and  insurrections  were  unsuccessful  in  the 
main,  yet  they  had  a  large  share  in  forcing  the  governing  minority 
to  grant  important  palliatives  of  the  existing  social  anarchy. 

But  the  movement  of  the  people  which  was  led  by  the 
Chartists  gave  organisation  and  consistence,  also,  to  advanced 
political  claims  which  had  been  put  forward  from  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century;  and  the  ablest  leaders  looked  to  political 
action  rather  than  to  armed  force  for  obtaining  reforms.  It 
was  from  the  political  Charter,  suggested,  it  was  said,  by  Feargus 
O'Connor,  that  the  Chartists  were  given  their  name.  They 
advocated  universal  manhood  suffrage,  annual  parliaments, 
payment  of  members,  secret  ballots  and  equal  electoral  districts 
all  over  the  country.  This  programme  was  moderate  and 
sensible  enough,  although  two  out  of  the  five  reforms  desired 
have  not  been  obtained  nearly  ninety  years,  or  three  genera- 
tions, later — so  slow  is  any  real  advance  in  Great  Britain. 

But  that  such  a  political  programme  should  have  aroused 
enthusiasm,  as  it  unquestionably  did,  shows  how  devoted 
EngUshmen  were  to  poUtical  action  as  the  best  means  for  right- 
ing their  social  wrongs ;  while  the  fear  and  hatred  which  the 
formulation  of  these  reasonable  demands  engendered  among 
the  possessing  classes  proves  that  they,  on  their  side,  were  re- 
solutely determined  not  to  forgo  one  iota  of  that  overwhelming 
political  and  economic  domination  which  had  been  so  strongly 
fortified  by  the  purely  middle-class  Reform  Act  of  1832.  The 
Chartists  wished  to  give  full  political  rights  to  the  whole  of  the 
adult  male  population  who  created  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
in  order  that  they  might  use  their  political  power  for  their  own 
economic  advantage.  The  capitalists  and  profiteers,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  as  anxious  as  ever  to  exclude  the  whole  people 
from  any  effective  poUtical  suffrage,  in  order  to  keep  all  social 
and  political  influence  in  their  own  hands.  Nor  were  they 
content  even  with  the  supremacy  that  they  held  over  the 
workers  before  their  great  political  victory  of  1832.  There  was 
still  a  further  step  to  be  taken  in  order  to  render  the  economic 
and  social  condition  of  the  people  more  hopeless. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  defects  of  the  old  Poor  Law,  it 
did,  at  least,  secure  to  the  poor  some  provision  for  old  age,  in  the 
shape  of  relief  from  the  rates  for  the  aged  in  their  own  homes, 


300  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  for  able-bodied  labourers  unable  to  obtain  work  by  no 
fault  of  their  own.  They  were  thus  not  wholly  at  the  mercy  of 
the  ruthless  class  which  had  them  in  its  grip.  Outdoor  relief 
on  a  sufficient  scale  did  afford  the  workers  some  subsistence 
at  home,  when  the  employers  would  otherwise  have  left  them 
to  starve.  So  the  capitalists  set  to  work,  immediately  on 
the  realisation  of  their  Reform  Bill,  to  strengthen  their  own 
power  over  the  mass  of  the  people  by  the  abrogation  of  the 
ancient  law  in  favour  of  necessitous  people,  and  the  enactment  of 
the  new  method  for  still  further  enslaving  the  propertyless  class. 
This  law  was  intended  to  remove  from  the  unemployed  all  hope 
of  any  support,  except  under  conditions  which  were  even  worse 
than  the  horrible  factory  toil  from  which  they  had  temporarily 
escaped. 

It  was  successful.  The  workhouses  were  dens  of  infamous 
oppression  whose  terrors  are  not  even  yet  forgotten.  The  worst 
of  starvation  wages  was  better  than  these  prisons,  with  their 
mental  and  physical  torture.  But  since  this  abominable 
measure  affected  chiefly  only  the  poorest  of  the  poor,  since  it 
was  supported  by  the  most  shameful  misrepresentations,  which 
still  find  currency,  as  to  the  natural  laziness  of  the  people,  since 
the  most  preposterous  exaggerations  were  spread  abroad  con- 
cerning the  malefic  effect  of  the  old  Poor  Law,  since,  also,  elabor- 
ate prose  odes  concerning  the  beneficent  influence  of  capitalist 
production  on  British  social  life  were  spread  abroad  among  the 
people — the  ruUng  classes  thought  that  this  scheme  of  the  em- 
ployers to  degrade  the  workers  still  further  would  be  accepted 
without  demur.     It  was  not  so. 

Although  the  capitalist  class  controlled  almost  the  entire 
Press,  some  of  the  workers  at  once  recognised  that  the  Act, 
hustled  through  the  new  and  almost  exclusively  middle-class 
Parliament,  was  aimed  against  the  interests  of  the  entire  working 
class.  Especially  was  it  directed  at  that  growing,  and  already 
very  large,  section  whose  sole  means  of  earning  a  livelihood  was 
to  find  an  employer  to  purchase  their  labour  power  (the  only 
commodity  they  possessed)  at  mere  subsistence  wages,  so  long 
as  they  had  health  and  strength  enough  to  be  profitable  to  the 
purchaser.  These  propertyless  proletarians  were  also  liable  to 
suffer  from  periods  of  unemployment,  through  no  fault  of  their 
own,  but  through  the  anarchical  system  of  competition  under 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT  301 

which  they  toiled.  Gluts  of  commodities  which  they  them- 
selves produced,  as  well  as  the  introduction  of  new  and  improved 
machines  into  their  special  line  of  work,  might  throw  the  most 
industrious  men  out,  workless  and  starving,  upon  the  streets  at 
any  time.  From  the  same  causes  skilled  artisans  often  found 
themselves  in  the  same  predicament.  In  such  hard  times  all 
these  working  folk  were  forced  into  the  workhouse  and  treated 
as  if  they  were  criminals,  in  order  that,  when  trade  revived, 
they  might  accept  the  lowest  possible  wages  to  escape  from 
this  squalid  servitude.  This  naturally  infuriated  many  leaders 
of  the  people. 

Seeing  the  increasing  propertyless  crowd  cheated  out  of  any 
share  in  the  political  representation,  which  the  pressure  of  the 
toilers  had  enabled  the  middle  class  to  obtain  for  themselves, 
and  then  seeing  this  political  power,  so  gained,  at  once  un- 
scrupulously used  against  the  wage-earners,  they  became  con- 
vinced that  political  action,  or  general  agitation,  by  itself  was 
thenceforward  futile,  unless  supported  by  armed  insurrec- 
tion, or  by  organised  strikes  and  direct  action  on  a  large  scale. 
Both  of  these  methods  aimed  obviously  at  immediate  social 
revolution.  It  cannot  be  denied,  furthermore,  that  the  time 
seemed  more  ripe  for  such  a  general  upheaval  than  it  did  even 
immediately  after  the  Napoleonic  War.  There  were  grievances 
enough  to  justify  almost  any  revolt.  This  is  the  excuse  for  the 
advocates  and  resorters  to  physical  force.  They  were  mistaken, 
but  it  was  a  natural  mistake.  However,  they  could  not  expect 
that  the  capitalists,  in  the  full  plenitude  of  their  domination, 
would  hesitate  to  use  all  possible  measures  to  hamper  and 
suppress  their  assailants.  In  this  class  war  the  bourgeoisie  had 
all  the  decisive  weapons  in  their  hands,  and  they  used  them. 

Yet  the  political  and  educational  work  done  by  the  political 
Chartists,  in  spite  of  all  hindrances,  was  amazing.  Their  diffi- 
culties were  so  great  that  it  is  not  easy,  in  these  days,  to  appreciate 
them  fully.  Though  the  towns  were  growing  and  communica- 
tions were  improving,  with  Telford's  Macadamised  roads  and  the 
commencement  of  railways,  travelling  was  still  very  expensive 
and  newspapers  were  very  dear.  Yet  The  Northern  Star,  the 
principal  Chartist  organ,  which  had  a  circulation  of  50,000  copies, 
a  very  large  number  in  those  days,  and  The  Poor  Man's  Guardian, 
as  well   as  Cobbett's  periodicals,  exerted    a  great  influence. 


302  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Pamphlets  and  fly-sheets  also  did  their  work,  and  helped  on  the 
spread  of  ideas  promulgated  at  their  meetings  by  the  Chartist 
orators.  By  this  constant  agitation  and  teaching  they  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  no  fewer  than  1,000,000  genuine  signatures 
to  a  petition  in  favour  of  the  democratic  political  proposals  set 
forth  above.  This  gigantic  petition,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, was  treated  with  contempt  by  the  House  of  Commons. 

This  is  worthy  of  note,  showing  the  attitude  of  the  capitahsts 
and  their  nominees  towards  genuine  democratic  demands,  when 
they  feel  strong  enough  to  flout  them.  That  the  Chartists  should 
have  worked  on  steadily  for  political  changes  in  the  face  of  all 
the  obstacles  they  encountered,  the  unfair  methods  used  to 
defeat  them  and  the  persecution  to  which  they  were  subjected, 
says  much  for  their  honesty,  enthusiasm  and  courage.  As  I 
have  said,  they  have  never  in  any  way  received  the  recognition 
they  deserve.  The  champions  of  the  capitahsts  and  profiteers 
have  been  extolled  as  heroes ;  their  memories  are  cherished  as 
those  of  saints.  The  leaders  of  the  people  are  deprived  of  bread 
when  Uving  and  are  begrudged  stones  when  dead.  It  is  the  same 
all  through  history.  The  lives  of  the  leaders  of  the  dominant 
class  of  any  epoch  are  written  by  the  members  of  that  class. 
They,  being  in  possession  of  all  the  educational  and  Uterary 
faciUties  of  their  day,  indite  "  classical "  works,  which  are 
handed  on  from  generation  to  generation ;  while  the  truth  about 
their  opponents,  so  far  as  it  can  be  found,  is  left  to  be  deciphered 
and  recorded  in  a  future  age. 

But  it  must  be  admitted  that,  even  during  the  years  of  greatest 
Chartist  activity,  large  sections  of  the  workers  themselves, 
whilst  they  had  a  clearer  view  of  the  inevitable  antagonism 
between  the  wage-earners  and  wage-payers  than  their  immediate 
successors,  or  their  descendants,  until  to-day,  were  neither  suffi- 
ciently educated  nor  well  organised  enough  to  force  concessions 
from  the  governing  minority.  Although  in  1824  the  right  of 
the  skilled  workers  to  combine  was  at  last  legally  recognised, 
this  did  not  at  first  lead  very  far.  The  effect  was  to  constitute 
an  "  aristocracy  of  labour,"  which,  as  one  of  the  ablest  of  the 
Chartist  leaders  foresaw  and  predicted,  would  act  for  many  a 
long  day  as  a  buttress  or  defence  of  the  capitalists,  by  severing 
the  interests  of  the  highly  paid  artisans  from  those  of  the  lower- 
paid  unskilled  labourers,  and  by  fixing  the  attention  of   this 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT  303 

aristocracy  of  labour  upon  the  rates  of  the  wages  of  the  men 
in  their  own  organisations,  instead  of  upon  the  need  of  capturing 
the  powers  to  produce  and  distribute  wealth  for  the  interest  of 
all. 

Although  in  the  earlier  stages  of  Chartism  many  of  the 
organised  workers,  so  far  as  their  strength  permitted,  did  sup- 
port the  proposals  to  limit  the  ruinous  effect  of  unrestrained 
capitalist  exploitation  of  labour,  and  to  obtain  political  rights 
and  representative  powers  for  the  whole  adult  population, 
nevertheless  the  prognostications  of  Bronterre  O'Brien  were,  as 
will  be  seen  later,  most  unfortunately  fulfilled.  The  skilled 
men,  that  is  to  say,  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  their  interests  and 
those  of  the  unskilled  men  were  one  and  the  same,  if  they  were 
both  to  be  relieved  from  the  crushing  influence  of  capitalist 
monopoly.  With  their  extreme  anxiety  to  obtain  higher  wages, 
without  looking  to  the  final  abrogation  of  the  wages  system, 
they  grew,  in  fact,  to  be  supporters  of  the  employers  in  their 
domination.  One  section  of  the  organised  wage-earners  became 
in  this  manner  participators  in  the  methods  of  employment 
which  oppressed  the  whole  class. 

Worse  than  this,  the  excessive  overwork  of  women,  and  the 
introduction  of  children  into  the  mills  found  defenders  among 
the  very  class  which  suffered  from  this  short-sighted  policy,  so 
injurious  to  the  best  interests  of  the  entire  commimity.  The 
adult  male  workers  did  not  understand  that  the  superior  docility 
of  the  women  and  children,  and  their  incapacity  to  revolt  even 
by  strikes,  helped  the  employers  to  squeeze  more  profit  out  of 
the  whole  wage-earning  body,  by  the  competition  of  members  of 
their  own  household  on  a  still  lower  scale  of  subsistence  payment 
than  their  own.  The  total  wages  coming  into  their  homes  at 
the  week-end  seemed  to  be  increased  by  the  cormnon  effort  of 
the  family,  where,  as  an  economic  fact,  the  wages  of  the  men  by 
themselves  would  have  been  equal  to  that  received  by  the  fathers 
of  families,  their  wives  and  children  together,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  employment  of  these  others  on  a  lower  standard  of  life. 
Working  mothers  upheld,  ruinously,  the  sweating  of  their 
own  children  as  whole-timers,  and  afterwards  as  half-timers, 
in  the  factories,  on  the  ground  that  the  family  benefited 
by  the  wages  thus  earned,  and  that  the  work  they  had  gone 
through  themselves  ought  to  be  imdcilaken  by  their  own  boys 


804  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  girls.  Thus,  no  slight  opposition  to  social  improvement 
came  from  the  working  class  itself ;  and  the  obstacles  the  Chart- 
ists had  to  encounter  in  this  respect  have  existed  up  to  the 
present  day.  It  is  not  surprising  that,  with  such  ignorance  to 
combat,  in  the  early  days,  it  took  many  long  years  to  make  the 
Factory  Acts  effective. 

All  the  practical  social  effects  of  unrestricted  capitalism  were, 
however,  explained  to  the  people  by  the  Chartists  in  plain, 
easily  understood  language,  none  the  less  correct  for  being 
intelligible.  Thus  they  taught  that  men,  women  and  children, 
from  their  lack  of  property  of  any  kind,  were  compelled,  in 
order  merely  to  live,  to  sell  the  labour  power  in  their  bodies  as  a 
commodity — a  commodity,  moreover,  which  would  not  keep — 
to  the  capitalists,  on  the  lowest  standard  of  subsistence  usual  in 
their  trade;  that  the  capitalists,  landlords,  bankers,  brokers, 
merchants,  shopkeepers,  etc.,  took,  in  the  shape  of  rent,  interest, 
profit,  commissions,  commercial  charges,  differences  of  value, 
all  the  social  labour  value  that  men,  women  and  children  pro- 
duced in  the  factories,  over  and  above  the  cost  of  raw  material, 
wear  and  tear,  etc.,  and  the  mere  cost  of  subsistence  of  the 
workers  paid  in  wages  ;  that  the  capitalists,  landlords  and  their 
hangers-on  gained  virtually  all  the  advantages  of  the  great 
improvements  in  labour-saving  machinery,  chemistry,  superior 
organisation,  cheapness  of  coal,  raw  material  and  food,  whereas 
the  workers  benefited  little,  if  at  all,  but  often  rather  suffered, 
from  the  introduction  of  new  and  improved  processes  ;  and  that 
the  wage-earners  were  not  sure  of  receiving  even  the  small 
remuneration  which  their  low  average  standard  of  life  called 
for,  owing  to  commercial  crises  and  other  disturbances  of  trade. 

All  these  facts  were  familiar  to  the  working-class  leaders 
of  the  early  Chartist  times,  as  also  the  truth  that  capitalism 
could  not  hold  its  own  under  free  competition  unless  a  fringe  of 
unemployed  labour  were  ever  at  hand  to  keep  down  the  rate  of 
wages,  and  that  there  could  be  no  over-population,  so  long  as 
men  were  constantly  producing  by  their  labour  more  than  was 
necessary  (if  work  were  properly  co-ordinated)  to  enable  all 
to  live  in  comfort  and  even  luxury.  These  views  were  more 
advanced  in  genuine  economics  and  sociology  than  any  which 
were  widely  accepted  at  that  time  on  the  Continent  of  Europe. 
They  were  preached  by  the  Chartists  long  before  Karl  Marx 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT    305 

was  heard  of,  and  at  least  twenty  years  before  the  Communist 
Manifesto  was  published.  ^ 

Yet,  supposing  that  the  time  had  been  ripe  in  England,  as 
many  then  believed,  for  a  great  social  revolution,  one  important 
fact  stood  in  the  way  of  both  the  political  and  physical  force 
revolutionists.  In  all  the  serious  upheavals,  previous  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  London  had  taken  a  leading  part.  The  men 
of  the  metropolis  were  formerly  a  turbulent  folk.  Cromwell,  at 
the  height  of  his  power,  had  trouble  with  the  citizens  of  the 
metropolis.  This  was  not  the  case  in  the  days  of  Chartism. 
That  movement  had  its  centres  in  the  industrial  districts  of  the 
north  of  England,  where  the  big  factory  system  had  first  taken 
root.  London  had  shared  to  a  relatively  small  extent  in  that 
development.  There  was  agitation,  there  were  meetings,  there 
were  small  disturbances  and  ill-organised  risings,  but  London 
was  never  really  stirred  by  the  propaganda.  The  Chartists 
did  not  imderrate  the  importance  of  the  capital.  Efforts  were 
made  to  rouse  the  population.  But  there  was  never  any 
enthusiasm  on  the  Thames  at  all  comparable  to  the  vigour 
and  determination  displayed  in  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  the  Mid- 
lands, or  even  Wales.  The  social  programme  never  gripped  the 
imagination  of  the  populace  in  London  as  it  did  elsewhere  ;  the 
conception  of  physical  force  never  appealed  to  the  descendants 
of  the  old  train-bands :  the  political  demands  themselves, 
though  more  acceptable  to  the  Londoners,  were  not  combmed 
in  their  minds  with  ideas  of  a  thoroughgoing  transformation. 

This  was  apparent  at  the  imposing  National  Convention  held 
by  the  Chartists  in  London  in  1838,  six  years  after  the  passing 
of  the  Reform  Bill.  The  result  of  the  gathering  from  which  so 
much  was  expected  was  disappointing,  and  the  local  riots  which 
occurred  were  easily  suppressed.  Nothing  more  of  a  serious 
character  was  attempted  in  the  capital  until  ten  years  later, 
when  the  failure  of  the  Great  Demonstration  of  10th  April  1848, 
on  Kennington  Common,  practically  brought  the  whole  move- 
ment to  an  end.  This  demonstration,  however,  caused  great 
alarm.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  concentrated  a  well-equipped 
army  in  London,  prepared  for  all  emergencies,   and  special 

^  The  immense  service  rendered  by  Marx  was,  that  he  gave  a  scientific  basis  to  all 
this  popular  revolt ;  and  enabled  the  wage-earners  to  meet  the  bourgeois  political 
economists  on  their  own  chosen  ground. 

U 


306  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

constables  were  enrolled  in  addition  in  very  large  numbers.  But 
the  outcome  of  it  all  was  given  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  of  a  shop- 
keeper in  the  neighbourhood  as  to  the  cause  of  the  interruption 
to  the  traffic  in  Fetter  Lane  :  "  It  is  only  the  Revolution  going 
down  Fleet  Street."  It  was  impossible  to  rouse  the  centre  of 
the  Empire  to  any  great  extent ;  and  this  made  failure  certain, 
though  there  were  few  who  recognised  it  at  the  time. 

In  1842  the  physical  force  section  of  the  Chartists  may  be 
said  to  have  gone  under ;  for  the  Kennington  Common  Demon- 
stration in  1848  was,  in  reality,  no  more  than  a  political  assembly. 
At  the  same  time  the  agitation  for  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws 
which  had  been  going  on  steadily  took  a  very  active  shape. 
This  measure  was  ardently  advocated  by  the  capitalists  as  the 
economic  cure  for  all  social  ills.  The  Chartists,  though  favour- 
able to  Free  Trade  in  theory,  opposed  Repeal  most  vigorously, 
unless  it  was  accompanied  by  nationalisation  of  the  land.  They 
argued  that  the  cheapening  of  the  price  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  which  might  follow  upon  Repeal  would  not  in  the  least  affect 
the  status  of  the  wage-earners  in  their  relations  with  the  capital- 
ist class.  Bread  might  cost  less ;  if  this  was  so,  wages,  under 
the  conditions  then  prevailing,  would  fall  relatively  to  that 
extent.  No  permanent  social  improvement  would  result  for 
the  working  class.  The  wage-earners  would  be  at  the  mercy 
of  the  employers  as  before,  and  in  the  long  run  the  latter 
alone  would  gain. 

Therefore  the  Chartists  and  their  followers  went  so  far  in 
their  opposition  as  to  attend,  interrupt,  and  break  up  Free  Trade 
meetings  wherever  possible.  They  considered  the  Repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws  not  only  as  no  remedy  for  the  miserable  condition 
of  the  workers  already  described,  but  as  not  even  a  palliative  of 
the  existing  state  of  things.  But  there  was  a  very  much  stronger 
reason  for  the  vehement  opposition  offered  to  the  capitalist 
Free  Trade  agitation  which  really  determined  their  hostile  atti- 
tude. The  leading  orators,  agitators  and  writers  of  the  Free 
Trade  movement  numbered  in  their  ranks  the  most  bitter 
opponents  of  any  laws  which  might  restrict  the  overwork  of 
women,  do  away  with  the  wholesale  sweating  of  children,  or 
limit  the  general  hours  of  labour  in  the  factories.  Fox,  Bright, 
and  Cobden  were  all  on  the  side  of  laissez-faire  and  Free  Trade 
in  sweated  labour,  as  well  as  in  imported  corn. 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  CHARTIST  MOVEMENT  307 

Moreover,  the  same  men  and  their  associates  were  violent 
enemies  of  all  combinations  among  the  workers.  Trade  Unions 
might  be  an  aristocracy  of  labour,  as  Bronterre  O'Brien  and 
other  Chartists  maintained,  but  they  were  organisations  directed 
against  the  unlimited  power  of  employers  to  decree  and  maintain 
low  rates  of  wages  for  the  skilled  workers.  It  was  upon  this 
ground  that  the  capitalist  orators  of  Free  Trade  attacked  them. 
Naturally  this  was  a  strong  cause  of  offence  to  men  who  were  striv- 
ing for  the  uplifting  of  the  whole  people.  In  short,  the  Chartist 
leaders  regarded  the  agitation  for  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws 
by  itself  as  no  better  than  a  red  herring  drawn  by  the  employers 
across  the  trail  of  nationalisation  and  socialisation  which  should 
lead  the  workers  to  economic  and  social  freedom.  Further,  the 
orators  of  Free  Trade  exaggerated  most  preposterously  the  glori- 
ous changes  that  would  come  over  the  condition  of  the  people 
if  their  programme  were  carried  out.  It  is  very  sad,  and  grimly 
ludicrous,  to  look  back  to-day  at  the  predictions  of  the  Free 
Traders  as  to  the  halcyon  conditions  which  would  prevail  for  the 
working  people  and  their  families  if  only  the  Com  Laws  were  re- 
pealed. Undoubtedly  these  Laws  did  benefit  the  landlords,  and 
did  raise  the  price  of  bread.  But  W.  H.  Fox,  the  finest  orator 
of  them  all,  who  was  specially  eloquent  on  this  reform,  made  out 
that  squalor  would  be  unknown,  slums  would  disappear,  un- 
employment would  cease  to  be,  all  wages  would  rise,  poor-houses 
— bastilles,  the  people  called  them — would  fall  into  decay  like  the 
feudal  castles  of  the  old  nobility.  A  glorious  prospect  indeed. 
The  Chartists  protested :  nationalisation  of  land  first.  Free 
Trade  afterwards.  But  the  capitalists  won  the  day.  Nation- 
alisation of  any  description  fell  into  abeyance  from  1846 
onwards. 

Seventy  years  of  experience  of  Free  Trade  under  capitalism 
has  proved  to  the  present  generation  of  workers  that  the  Chart- 
ists were  quite  right  in  their  predictions,  the  capitalist  orator 
quite  wrong. 

The  attempt  of  the  Chartists  to  rouse  anew  the  people  of 
England  when  national  revolt,  political  overthrow  and  Socialist 
agitation  were  going  on  all  over  the  Continent,  failed.  From 
1848,  in  spite  of  all  spasmodic  efforts,  Chartism  gradually  died 
down.  Its  active  leaders  were  never  able  to  secure  the  political 
positions  to  which  their  great  abilities  and  splendid  efforts  on 


308  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

behalf  of  the  people  entitled  them.  They  were  ahead  of  their 
time.  Even  their  names,  as  said,  are  mostly  forgotten.  But 
when,  in  days  to  come,  the  real  history  of  the  English  people  in 
the  nineteenth  century  is  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
people  themselves,  none  will  be  more  honoured  than  they.  For 
the  Chartists  were  the  leaders  of  the  first  organised  political, 
forcible  and  class-conscious  revolt  against  capitalism,  profiteer- 
ing and  wage  slavery,  as  a  recognised  and  definite  historic 
development,  which  grew  up  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  has 
passed  from  its  zenith  to  its  decline  within  our  own  day. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  PERIOD  OF  APATHY 

After  the  decay  of  the  Chartist  Movement  in  1848  a  bhght 
fell  upon  the  whole  working  class  of  Great  Britain.  They  lost 
their  vigorous  revolutionary  impulse  entirely.  Prayer  meetings 
and  Mechanics'  Institutes  gave  expression  to  their  highest 
aspirations.  They  accepted  penal  servitude  for  Hfe  as  the  por- 
tion of  them  and  theirs  for  ever;  limited  by  philanthropic  enact- 
ments, it  is  true,  as  the  slaves  of  old  time  were  protected  by  law 
from  the  more  outrageous  brutality  of  their  masters  under 
Hadrian  and  the  Antonines.  Bemused  and  benighted  by  the 
fallacies  of  profiteering  economics,  and  the  devil-take-the- 
hindmost  individualism  of  the  competitive  capitalism  which 
dominated  their  fortunes,  the  wealth  producers  of  our  island 
actually  indoctrinated  themselves  with  the  belief  that  their 
duty  in  life  was  to  strive  for  the  enrichment  of  their  employers, 
since  in  this  way  alone  could  they  benefit  themselves  and  their 
fellows  ;  unless,  indeed,  by  extraordinary  self-denial  and  miracu- 
lous thrift,  they  might  rise  out  of  the  ruck  of  wage-earners  and 
become  employers  of  their  less  parsimonious  and  self-denying 
co-workers  in  their  turn.  Nothing  could  be  more  depressing. 
It  was  an  Egyptian  darkness  of  the  intelligence  which  could  be 
felt.  I  have  spoken  and  written  of  that  deplorable  generation 
as  the  period  of  apathy.  It  was  worse,  it  was  a  period  of  servihty 
and  of  systematic  corruption  of  the  working-class  mind  through 
the  poisoning  of  the  sources  of  information  by  the  entire  Press. 
I  first  saw  it  all  very  close  when  I,  a  Londoner  by  birth, 
was  reading  as  a  lad  with  the  vicar  of  St  Thomas',  Stockport, 
and  went  about  the  neighbourhood  playing  cricket  in  the  eleven 
of  Manchester  (Old  Trafford)  Club.  I  did  not,  of  course,  fully 
appreciate  the  causes  or  the  effects  of  the  horrors  around  me. 
But  Stockport  itself  was  at  that  time  a  frightful  den,  and  other 
cities  of  Lancashire  were  like  unto  it.  As  I  grew  up,  therefore, 
all  these  dreadful  places,  in  which  the  fortunes  of  the  cotton 
lords  were  piled  up  out  of  the  misery  of  the  ill-housed,  ill-fed, 

309 


310  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

ill-clothed,  iU-tended  men,  women  and  children,  came  back 
upon  me  and  I  recognised  as  I  visited  the  same  towns  again  iu 
later  years  that  large  portions  of  the  people  are  little  better  olf 
to-day  than  they  were  then.  How  human  beings  could  con- 
tinue to  exist  in  such  surroundings,  without  rising  in  open  revolt 
against  those  who  kept  them  there,  was  a  marvel. 

Not  until  long  afterwards  did  I  apprehend  that  these  condi- 
tions themselves  tend  to  maintain  the  masses  in  subjection,  by 
sheer  ignorance  and  physical  depression,  until  the  whole  social 
system  is  tottering  to  its  fall.  This  was  apparent  in  the  political 
field  when  Ernest  Jones  stood  at  this  same  time  (1858)  for 
Manchester,  the  leading  city  of  the  whole  development,  and  was 
well  beaten  by  the  two  plutocrats,  Milner  Gibson  and  John 
Bright.  So  hopeless  was  the  entire  outlook  for  the  wage-earners 
that  more  than  forty  years  later  one  of  the  ablest  organisers  the 
workers  of  England  ever  had  explained  to  me  that,  though  he 
saw  as  clearly  as  I  did  the  monstrous  wrongs  inflicted  by  capital- 
ism upon  the  people,  he  could  not  have  carried  his  own  cotton 
operatives  with  him  had  he  openly  proclaimed  the  opinions 
which  he  held.  Such  was  the  statement  made  to  me  by  the 
late  James  Maudslay  at  the  great  International  Trades  Union 
and  Socialist  Congress  held  in  the  Queen's  Hall,  London,  in 
1896.  Yet  the  dry  bones  of  individualism  and  "  self-help  " 
had  then  been  stirred  for  sixteen  years. 

Notwithstanding  also  the  ground  which  the  Trade  Unions 
were  then  gaining,  the  members  whom  they  returned  to 
Parliament  so  little  understood  the  inevitable  antagonism 
between  the  wage-earners  they  represented  and  the  land- 
lords and  employers  who  constituted  the  House  of  Commons, 
that  they  actually  formed  a  section  of  the  Capitalist-Liberal 
party,  and  could  always  be  relied  upon  to  vote  with  that 
party,  save  and  except  when  questions  of  Irish  peasants, 
not  English  factory  hands,  were  concerned.  Worse  than  this, 
the  workers  as  a  whole  preferred  to  be  represented  by  rich 
men — ^by  the  very  capitahsts,  that  is  to  say,  who  had  grown 
up  in  their  own  neighbourhood  and  had  made  great  wealth  out 
of  the  labour  of  the  voters  who  returned  these  plutocrats  to 
Parliament.  The  mere  fact  of  being  a  millionaire  was  a  high 
reconmiendation  to  an  industrial  constituency.  He  could  afford 
to  find  plenty  of  funds  for  all  sorts  of  election  expenses  and  to 


THE  PERIOD  OF  APATHY  311 

subscribe  largely  to  the  local  charities.  A  working  man  who 
stood  stoutly  for  the  real  interests  of  the  workers,  and  appealed 
to  them  as  a  class  to  return  him  to  champion  their  rights,  inde- 
pendently of  both  the  capitalist  factions,  had  no  chance  at  all  in 
those  days.  Not  even  a  candidate  pledged  to  the  eight-hour 
day,  or  to  the  abolition  of  half-time  for  young  children  in  the 
factories  could  get  a  hearing. 

Thus  all  the  fine,  self-sacrificing  work  of  the  Chartists  had  but 
ploughed  up  barren  soil,  their  teaching  had  fallen  by  the  wayside. 
Only  here  and  there  was  to  be  found  an  enthusiast  who  waited 
patiently  for  the  revival  of  the  old  spirit,  and  lived,  and  in  too 
many  cases,  died,  without  being  able  to  detect  even  the  slightest 
prospect  of  a  real  change. 

During  the  entire  half-century,  from  1848  to  1900,  slums  were 
spreading  in  all  the  great  cities,  long  periods  of  unemployment 
for  huge  numbers  of  the  people  frequently  recurred,  education 
for  the  masses  was  still  deplorably  bad,  half-time  child  labour 
remained  the  rule  in  Lancashire,  emigration  was  ferv^ently 
preached  as  a  remedy  for  "  over-population,"  land  was  going 
steadily  out  of  cultivation,  while  agricultural  labourers  were 
miserably  underpaid,  and  existence,  not  to  say  decent  mainten- 
ance, for  the  deserving  poor  remained  as  uncertain  as  ever.  It 
was,  in  fact,  in  the  very  midst  of  these  halcyon  days  for  the  rich 
employers  and  their  hangers-on  that  a  philanthropic  shipowner 
proved,  by  elaborate  statistics,  that  one-third  of  the  working 
population  received  weekly  wages  insufficient,  even  in  those 
days  of  cheap  food  and  cheap  clothing  and  cheap  fuel  all  round, 
to  keep  them  above  the  semi-starvation  level. 

All  this  is  indisputable,  and  has  been  often  commented  upon. 
If  the  extreme  anarchists  had  been  right  when  they  declared  that 
the  intolerable  contrast  between  excessive  wealth  and  grinding 
poverty  must  bring  about  upheaval  and  social  revolution,  then 
Great  Britain,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  would 
have  been  in  one  continuous  whirlpool  of  insurrection.  Nothing 
of  the  kind.  The  utmost  perturbation  manifested  was  in  the 
shape  of  a  succession  of  agitations  on  behalf  of  the  unemployed, 
which  led  to  httle  improvement  in  their  condition,  and  were 
forgotten  by  the  out-of-work  men  themselves,  as  soon  as  better- 
ing trade  reabsorbed  them  into  the  ranks  of  ill-paid  wagedom. 
During  the  whole  of  this  period  of  apathy,  however,  not  only  had 


312  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

the  capitalists  command  over  all  the  inventions  and  discoveries 
previously  made  and  adapted  to  the  increased  production  of 
social  wealth,  but  the  astounding  expansion  of  man's  power 
over  nature,  which  began  in  the  eighteenth  century,  progressed 
with  a  rapidity  quite  unprecedented  in  the  history  of  the 
human  race. 

There  was  a  greater  transformation  in  all  important  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge  and  human  appliances  for  wealth 
production  and  distribution  than  had  been  effected  in 
thousands  of  years  before.  It  requires  almost  as  vigorous  an 
effort  of  the  imagination  to  live  back  into  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  Great  Britain  and  enter  into  the  forms  of 
life  which  then  prevailed,  even  among  the  most  luxurious  class, 
compared  with  the  habits,  customs  and  manners  of  the  same 
class  to-day,  as  to  picture  the  actual  existence  of  a  Japanese 
feudal  Daimio  of  old  time,  or  the  general  life  of  the  Egyptian 
nobles  who  gathered  round  a  Pharaoh.  To  appreciate  the  differ- 
ence we  have  to  strip  off,  not  only  the  vast  motive  powers  of 
steam  and  electricity  and  oil  used  for  accelerating  machinery, 
as  well  as  the  stupendous  improvements  of  every  sort  in  machin- 
ery itself,  but  most  of  the  small  conveniences  of  everyday 
domestic  life  and  the  details  of  daily  use,  like  the  telegraph,  tele- 
phone, daily  post,  etc.  Transport  and  communication  have 
been  entirely  revolutionised.  Even  the  wage-earners  themselves 
are  able  to  transfer  their  labour  from  one  country  to  another 
for  seasonal  work,  like  the  ItaUans,  for  example,  voyaging 
thousands  of  miles  to  North  and  South  America  and  returning 
home  at  short  intervals.  The  world  market  and  the  world  at  large 
have  replaced,  in  mercantile  calculations,  all  the  old  local  con- 
siderations of  traffic  which  dominated  little  more  than  a  century 
ago.  The  globe  which,  not  much  earlier  than  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  would  have  had  the  bigness  in  our  mental 
vision  of  Jonah's  gourd,  say,  how  assumes  the  size  of  a  tangerine 
orange. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  commencement  of  these  amazing 
changes  Great  Britain  led  the  entire  development.  All  the 
immense  improvements  went  into  the  hands  of  her  capitalists 
— ^without  any  reference  to  the  wage-earners  working  below. 
Their  diseases  even — engendered  by  town  life,  the  factory 
system,  and  the  physical  and  mental  deterioration  entailed — 


THE  PERIOD  OF  APATHY  313 

passed  almost  wholly  disregarded  by  the  nation  at  large,  so 
completely  had  the  idea  that  the  health  and  strength  of  the 
people  is  the  greatest  national  asset  faded  out  of  the  minds  of 
the  class  which  controlled  the  national  policy  solely  for  its 
own  pecuniary  advantage.  Cato's  opinion  about  the  uselessness 
of  sick  and  worn-out  slaves  became  the  general  basis  of  the  ethic 
of  capitalist  wagedom. 

Yet  there  was  no  revolt  whatever  of  the  wage-earners  them- 
selves against  this  sinister  morality.  Such  suggestions  as  were 
put  forward  in  the  interests  of  conmion  humanity  came,  not 
from  the  working  class,  but  from  members  of  the  boiu-geoisie 
themselves.  Even  the  Trade  Unions,  though  growing  in 
numbers,  influence  and  political  power,  paid  little  or  no  atten- 
tion to  the  well-being  of  the  lower  grades  of  labour,  which  were 
unorganised,  and  considered  higher  wages  for  themselves  the 
only  matter  worthy  of  serious  attention.  Thus,  in  the  leading 
capitalist  coimtry,  there  was  no  conscious  revolutionary  move- 
ment nor  any  general  idea — such  as  prevailed  among  the 
Chartists — of  taking  possession  of  the  land,  the  means  of 
communication,  the  factories  and  the  shipping  of  the  nation 
for  the  advantage  of  the  whole  people,  even  among  skilled  and 
organised  artisans,  still  less,  therefore,  among  unskilled  and 
casual  labourers,  for  more  than  fifty  years.  The  conception  of  an 
economic  and  social  class  war  had  disappeared  from  the  sphere 
of  workshop  discussion  as  well  as  from  the  area  of  "  practical 
politics."  So  lately  as  1888  a  foreign  workman,  long  resident 
in  England,  who  persisted  in  moving  for  an  eight-horn*  law  at 
successive  Trade  Union  Congresses,  was  regarded  by  his  English 
fellow-toilers  as  a  well-meaning  but  wholly  unpractical  fanatic. 
Years  passed,  and  unceasing  propaganda  had  been  carried  on 
throughout  Great  Britain,  before  any  such  reduction  became  in 
reality  a  question  of  the  day. 

Needless  to  say,  therefore,  that  the  desperate  struggle  of  the 
Commune  of  Paris,  already  dealt  with,  failed  to  rouse  any  active 
sympathy  on  the  English  side  of  the  Channel.  A  small  knot  of 
old  Chartists,  combined  with  a  very  few  Trade  Unionists  who 
had  been  influenced  by  the  teachings  of  International  Sociahsts, 
issued  a  Manifesto,  and  called  a  meeting  in  Hyde  Park,  in  sup- 
port of  the  Parisian  workers  against  M.  Thiers  and  the  reactionary 
anny  of  the  bourgeoisie.     But  this  effort  to  rouse  British  workers 


314  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

fell  flat.  No  aid  was  forthcoming  from  British  Trade  Unionists 
either  before  or  after  the  fall  of  the  Commune.  It  was  even 
left  to  the  band  of  highly  educated  Positivists,  belonging  to  the 
well-to-do  class,  who  assuredly  had  no  sympathy  with  Socialism 
as  an  economic  or  social  policy,  to  obtain  some  sort  of  considera- 
tion and  employment  for  the  refugees  who  reached  London  after 
the  terrible  butcheries  at  Satory.  Possessed  of  no  ideal  or  high 
aspiration  for  the  future  of  their  class  themselves ;  having,  as 
already  said,  no  end  in  life  but  to  improve  somewhat  the  wage- 
slave  system,  which  condemned  them  to  perpetual  labour  for  the 
benefit  of  others,  the  toilers  of  Great  Britain  could  not  in  the 
least  comprehend,  far  less  admire  or  sympathise  with,  such  a 
hopeless  attempt  against  hopeless  odds  to  gain  an  impossible 
victory  for  the  sake  of  "  human  solidarity."  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, the  certainty  of  failure,  as  matters  then  stood,  and  the 
foolishness  of  risking  many  thousands  of  human  lives  on  a 
ruinous  venture,  that  left  them  careless  of  the  result  and  in- 
different, or  nearly  so,  to  the  fate  of  the  defeated,  but  sheer 
incapacity,  as  a  class,  to  enter  into  the  motives  of  the  men  and 
women  who  deliberately  sacrificed  themselves  in  such  a  struggle. 
Here  is  another  most  convincing  proof  of  the  truth  that  the 
stage  of  economic  development  by  no  means  invariably  reflects 
itself  in  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  human  beings  engaged  in 
the  forms  of  production  then  dominant.  England  and  London 
were  then  economically  far  in  advance  of  France  and  Paris. 
England  herself,  at  a  previous  period,  when  her  industrial  forms 
had  not  attained  anything  approaching  to  the  level  of  those  of 
1871,  showed  through  her  working  class,  a  clearer  appreciation 
of  the  real  meaning  and  tendency  of  capitalist  production  for 
profit  and  wagedom  than  France  ;  yet  the  French  workers  were 
at  this  time  ahead  of  their  English  brethren  in  appreciating  the 
desperate  social  conditions  inevitable  for  the  toilers  of  all  nations 
so  long  as  capitalism  should  endure.  These  contrasts  are  inex- 
plicable, unless  we  take  account  of  other  than  purely  material 
influences  in  their  crude  sense.  Nor  does  this  apply  to  England 
and  France  alone.  Germany,  which,  up  to  the  early  eighties  of 
the  last  century,  was  certainly  behind  England  in  economic 
growth,  had  a  far  more  active  and  better  organised  working-class 
movement  in  spite  of  this.  So  had  Belgium,  Denmark  and 
Finland,  which  likewise  were  less  economically  advanced. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  APATHY  315 

Thus  we  have  the  fact  that  the  workers  of  Great  Britain, 
who  led  Europe  in  organised  proletarian  resistance  to  capitalism 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  actually  fell 
behind  in  the  latter  half,  as  capitalism  gained  strength,  and  were 
passed,  in  the  display  of  working-class  vigour  and  intelligence,  by 
populations  at  that  time  on  a  lower  economic  level.  To  argue 
that  this  was  due  to  inferior  education  is  only  to  enhance  the 
value  of  that  psychological  factor  on  the  one  side  ;  while,  on  the 
other,  none  can  doubt  that  the  English  wage-earners,  who  were 
such  stalwart  opponents  of  capitalism  and  all  its  works  in  the 
Chartist  days,  had  still  less  education  to  boast  of  than  their 
successors,  from  1848  onwards.  Obviously,  such  examples  show 
the  danger  of  laying  do^vn  any  hard  and  fast  line  as  to  the  direct 
influence  of  forms  of  production  upon  revolutionary  movements. 
Other  elements  must  be  taken  into  account.  This  has  already 
been  seen  over  a  wide  area ;  here  it  manifests  itself  within  a  much 
narrower  sphere.  That,  however,  taking  civilisation  as  a  whole, 
the  expansion  of  capitalism  is  increasingly  accompanied  by  the 
revolt  of  the  wage-earners,  and  the  development  of  Socialism, 
even  a  superficial  survey  is  sufficient  to  disclose. 

From  the  end  of  the  great  twenty  years'  war  against  Napoleon 
in  1815,  therefore,  no  Socialism  in  any  shape  took  root  in  Great 
Britain  except  for  the  short  time  when  the  Chartists  were  agitat- 
ing. And  English  Trade  Unionists,  after  1848,  were  content  to 
act  in  economic  and  social  matters  as  if  the  wage-earning  system 
doomed  them  to  permanent  subjection.  They  divorced  their 
activities  entirely  from  polities.  English  Trade  Unionists, 
as  Trade  Unionists,  had,  therefore,  no  poUtical  influence,  and 
were  regarded  by  foreign  Socialists  as  little  better  than  the 
"  yellow  "  unions  of  the  Continent,  set  on  foot  by  Catholics  and 
other  reactionary  elements.  England,  in  fact,  was  the  principal 
conservative  element;  and  there  seemed  little  prospect,  even 
forty  years  ago,  that  the  Chartist  view  of  the  inevitable  class 
antagonism  and  class  war  between  the  wage-earners  and  the 
capitaUst  employers,  with  its  only  j>ossible  solution  in  the 
nationalisation  and  socialisation  of  all  the  great  means  of  pro- 
ducing and  distributing  wealth,  would  again  make  way  in  Great 
Britain.  Socialism  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  foreign  im- 
portation solely,  and  Communism,  which,  of  course,  connotes 


316  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

precisely  the  same  thing,  was  considered  quite  unfit  for  staid 
and  sober  English  workers.  This,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in 
1864  the  International  Working  Men's  Association  was  founded 
in  London  mainly  by  and  with  the  enthusiastic  support  of 
English  Trade  Unionists,  and  an  English  Positivist,  Professor 
E.  S.  Beesley,  took  the  chair  at  its  first  public  meeting.  The 
association,  after  a  struggle  with  Mazzini  and  his  friends,  fell 
under  the  influence  of  Marx  and  Engels,  then  both  resident  in 
London,  whose  remarkable  Communist  Manifesto  of  1847  has 
already  been  referred  to. 

Both  these  men,  admirable  as  they  were  in  their  exposition 
and  analysis  of  economic  history  and  sociological  tendencies, 
were  not  only  very  bad  judges  of  character,  but  they  were — 
especially  Engels — exceedingly  dictatorial  and  much  addicted 
to  intrigue.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  people  less  qualified  to 
inspire  ordinary  English  workers  with  their  ideas.  As  a  conse- 
quence, both  before  and  after  the  publication  of  the  first  volumes 
of  Marx's  colossal  work.  Das  Kapital,  in  1867,  not  translated 
into  English  as  a  whole  until  many  years  later,  this  association, 
generally  called  the  "  First  International,"  made  very  little  way 
in  Great  Britain.  English  influence  on  the  International,  in 
fact,  became  a  negligible  quantity.  The  Trade  Unionists  gradu- 
ally withdrew.  Admiring  Marx  and  his  great  abilities,  they 
were  unable  to  accept  his  theories,  which  were  the  doctrines  of 
the  Chartists  put  in  a  logical  form,  and  provided  with  a  scientific 
basis — as  a  trustworthy  guide  in  practical  life.  The  events  of 
1871  confirmed  them  in  this  opinion. 

Not  until  1880-1881  was  an  organised  effort  begun  to  revive 
among  the  people  of  Great  Britain  their  early  opposition  to  the 
tyranny  of  capital.  This  movement  was  cast  in  a  shape  suited 
to  the  new  period  and  designed  to  connect  a  genuine  English 
Socialist  party,  based  upon  scientific  economics  and  sociology, 
with  English  political  traditions.  The  pioneers  of  this  party, 
which  held  its  first  conference  on  8th  June  1881,  were  the 
members  of  the  Democratic — soon  afterwards  known  as  the 
Social-Democratic — Federation.  It  was  an  uphill  task.  Be- 
ginning at  the  end  of  1880,  with  the  announcement  of  a  very  ad- 
vanced political  programme,  advantage  was  taken  of  the  form 
thus  adopted  to  spread  the  ideas  of  Socialism  among  the  Radical 
clubs  of  London.     But  this  did  not  last  long.     A  book  distri- 


THE  PERIOD  OF  APATHY  317 

buted  at  the  Conference  showed  clearly  what  was  the  real  object 
in  view,  and  thereupon  most  of  the  Radicals  and  a  few  national- 
isers  of  rent  were  alarmed  and  left.  Yet,  from  this  time  may  be 
dated  the  commencement  of  the  agitation  for  the  collectivisa- 
tion and  communisation  of  property  in  Great  Britain,  an  agita- 
tion which  the  establishment  of  Justice  in  January,  1884,  greatly 
helped.  That  journal  has  been  published  weekly  now  for  over 
thirty-six  years  without  a  single  break.  It  has  never  ceased  to 
champion  the  cause  of  Social  Democracy,  and  no  contributor 
has  ever  received  payment  for  his  contributions — a  record  quite 
unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  journalism  in  any  country. 

The  Fabian  Society,  the  SociaUst  League  and,  eleven  years 
later,  the  Independent  Labour  Party  followed  in  the  wake  of 
the  Social-Democratic  Federation.  But  the  first  of  these  or- 
ganisations refused  to  admit  that  a  class  war  exists  between 
wage-earners  and  the  bourgeoisie,  and  devoted  itself  chiefly  to 
permeating  the  middle  class  with  collectivist  notions ;  the  second 
eschewed  poUtical  action  altogether ;  and  the  third,  formed  in 
order  to  constitute  a  moderate  half-way  house  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  weak  brethren,  has  developed  into  an  organisation  which, 
by  its  strong  anti-nationaUsm,  has  lately  done  much  to  retard  the 
spread  of  Socialism  of  any  shade  among  the  mass  of  Englishmen 
and  EngUshwomen. 

It  is  worth  notice,  as  showing  the  difficulties  which  had  to 
be  overcome  in  the  propaganda  of  clear-cut  Social  Democracy, 
that  not  only  were  the  pioneers  and  their  opinions  by  no  means 
welcome,  at  first,  even  among  the  mass  of  advanced  working 
men,  but,  though  they  were  endeavouring  to  spread  Marxian 
economics  and  sociology,  they  were  bitterly  denounced,  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  and  in  America,  by  the  strict  advocates  of 
Marxist  theories  themselves,  including  Marx  and  his  friends. 

The  latter  forgot,  in  their  zeal  for  their  own  special  views 
that  even  the  most  accurate  historic  and  economic  surveys  of 
general  development  must  be  adapted  to  the  social  conditions 
and  traditions  of  various  nations,  as  well  as  to  the  stage  of 
economic  growth  which  each  nation  has  attained.  This  is 
perhaps  more  true  of  England  than  any  other  country,  seeing 
that  the  English  have  had  a  century-long  development  of 
their  own,  unlike  that  in  Continental  nations ;  that  religious 
prejudices  have  much  greater  influence  in  England  than  else- 


318  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

where  ;  that  the  people  are  divorced  from  the  soil,  constituting 
a  genuine  proletariat ;  that  they  are  essentially  political  in  their 
methods,  to  an  extent  which  foreigners  are  rarely  able  to  under- 
stand or  appreciate.  They  are  also,  as  already  observed, 
singularly  deficient  in  idealism,  and  frequently  destitute  of  fore- 
sight where  their  own  dearest  interests  are  concerned.  Add  to 
all  this  that  their  education  is  exceptionally  deficient,  and  that 
the  numbers  and  influence  of  the  purely  parasitical  classes  and 
their  hangers-on  are  greater  in  England  than  anywhere  else 
in  the  world,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  that,  however  noble 
and  inspiring  a  material  creed  of  social  human  development 
may  be,  appeals  to  reason  are  less  effective  in  Great  Britain 
than  among  any  other  highly  civilised  people  of  the  West. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

TOWARDS  A  CO-OPERATIVE   COMMONWEALTH 

What  are  the  principles  which,  expounded  under  these  condi- 
tions in  this  island  for  just  upon  forty  years,  are  at  last  making 
way — ^the  principles  which  form  the  foundation  of  a  peaceful 
social  revolution  ?  It  is  most  necessary  that  at  this  juncture, 
and  probably  for  a  few  years  to  come,  these  principles,  economic 
and  social,  should  be  clearly  set  forth ;  since  it  is  certain  that 
attempts  to  realise  them  in  practice  will  be  met  by  reaction- 
ary resistance,  or  by  positive  treachery  and  violence  on  the  part 
of  the  possessing  classes.  Also,  the  workers  will  make  en- 
deavours to  attain  their  end  by  virtually  anarchistic  methods  ; 
for  they  realise  that  their  position  under  existing  conditions 
must  be  permanently  precarious,  no  matter  how  far  they  may 
succeed  in  raising  their  wages.  (In  fact  we  can  see  both  these 
tendencies  at  work  at  the  present  time.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
possessing  classes  are  now  refusing  to  accept  the  very  idea  of 
ownership  and  management  by  the  State,  because  their  own 
bureaucratic  control  of  railways,  factories,  mines,  sliipping,  has 
been  so  wasteful  and  disastrous  during  the  war ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  workers  are  daily  demanding  that  genuine  collective 
agency  on  behalf  of  the  community  should  be  begun  at  once, 
and  are  declaring  with  obvious  justice  that  they,  as  a  class,  are 
wholly  devoid  of  responsibility  for  the  blunders  of  their  employers 
and  their  nominees.)  Here,  then,  are  the  principles  and  pro- 
posals which  have  been  advocated  by  Social  Democrats  in  this 
country  since  1880  as  a  definite  social  policy.  All  the  coUectiv- 
ists,  now  active  in  national  and  local  affairs,  owe  what  knowledge 
of  political  economy  and  social  progress  they  possess  to  the 
pioneers  of  those  early  days. 

Through  the  long  groAvth  of  society  down  the  ages  there  have 

always  been,  since  the  establishment  of  private  property,  one  or 

more  possessing  classes,  who  own  everything  and  who  constitute 

themselves  the  dominating  minority   of  the   society  in  each 

319 


320  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

period.  Below  them  are  the  dominated  majority  who  own 
httle  or  nothing. 

The  struggles  between  sections  of  the  master  classes,  and 
the  revolts  of  the  disinherited  class  against  their  oppressors 
constitute  the  record  of  the  progress  of  civilised  mankind. 

Slavery,  direct  chattel  slavery,  lasted  among  the  more  ad- 
vanced peoples  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years.  Here  the  worker, 
as  well  as  all  he  produced  by  his  labour,  belonged  to  the  man 
who  owned  both  the  worker,  his  family,  the  land  and  the  tools 
in  country  and  town. 

Feudalism,  with  its  attendant  serfdom  and  villeinage,  en- 
dured in  Western  Europe  for  less  than  a  thousand  years.  Here 
in  most  cases  it  may  be  said  that  the  feudal  chief  owned  the 
worker  and  his  family,  but  not  always  the  land,  or  even  the 
tools.  "  We  are  the  lord's,  but  the  land  is  ours,"  was  a  common 
saying  of  the  workers  on  the  soil. 

Under  capitalism,  with  its  wage  slavery,  the  worker  and  his 
family  are  nominally  free ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  land,  the 
tools  and  all  the  product  of  his  labour  belong  to  the  employing 
class.  The  workers  are  at  liberty  to  change  their  individual 
masters,  if  they  can,  that  is  all. 

There  is  a  continuous  class  war  between  wage  slaves  and  the 
capitalist  class,  with  its  parasites. 

So  long  as  wages  are  paid  by  one  class  to  another  class,  so 
long  will  men  and  women  remain  slaves  to  the  employing  class. 

Wage  slaves  have  ceased  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  individual 
employers,  but  they  cannot  emancipate  themselves  from  slavery 
to  the  employing  class,  until  they  themselves  cease  to  compete 
with  one  another  for  wages. 

"  Free  and  Independent  Workers  "  sell  their  labour  power, 
which  is  the  only  commodity  they  possess,  to  the  capitalists 
who  own  or  control  all  the  means  of  producing  wealth,  including 
the  tools,  raw  material,  land  and  money. 

Under  the  great  machine  methods  of  production  the  workers 
are  controlled  by  their  tools,  instead  of  being  in  control  of  them. 

Under  the  capitalist  system  of  production  for  exchange  the 
producers  themselves  have  no  control  over  their  own  products. 

Commodities,  social  goods,  are  produced,  not  directly  for  social 
purposes,  but  indirectly,  in  order  to  create  a  profit  for  the 
capitalists. 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     321 

If  capitalists  are  unable  for  any  reason  to  produce  goods  profit- 
ably, the  wage-earners  cease  to  be  employed,  though  there  may 
be  a  vast  quantity  of  useful  goods  glutting  the  warehouses  on 
the  one  hand,  and  millions  of  people  who  are  anxious  to  have 
them  on  the  other. 

Rent,  profit  and  interest  are  all  provided  by  the  workers. 

They  are,  all  three,  the  component  parts  of  the  labour  value 
embodied  in  saleable  commodities  by  the  labour  power  of  the 
workers,  over  and  above  the  actual  wages  paid  to  the  toiler,  and 
the  cost  of  raw  materials,  incidental  materials,  etc.,  needed  by 
the  capitalist  for  the  conduct  of  his  business. 

The  wages  paid  by  the  employers  to  their  hands  represent 
the  customary  standard  of  life  of  the  special  grade  of  skilled  or 
unskilled  workers  employed. 

These  wages  are,  on  the  average,  returned  in  saleable  values 
to  the  capitalist  in  a  portion  of  the  working  day,  or  week,  for 
which  the  worker  has  sold  his  labour  power  to  the  capitalist. 

The  goods  produced  during  the  rest  of  the  time  the  wage- 
earner  works  for  the  capitaUst  are  the  result  of  this  extra  and 
unpaid  labour,  furnished  by  the  toiler  to  the  capitalist.  It  is 
the  modern  industrial  expression  of  the  corvSe,  enforced,  not 
by  the  whip,  but  by  pecuniary  necessity  and  individual  hunger. 
This  is  the  surplus  value,  out  of  which  all  the  classes  who  do 
not  directly  produce  are  paid  their  share :  the  majority  as 
parasites,  the  minority  as  professional  persons. 

Production  for  profit  and  exchange  by  wage  labour  assumes 
the  existence,  from  historic  causes,  of  large  numbers  of  people 
who  are  divorced  from  the  land  and  possess  no  property  of  their 
own. 

The  only  way  to  solve  the  growing  antagonism  between  the 
two  great  classes  of  modern  society  is,  by  substituting  co- 
operation for  competition,  in  all  branches  of  production  and 
distribution. 

This  involves  a  social  revolution,  peaceful  or  forcible. 

Competition  proved  itself  to  be  anarchical  in  its  essence  by 
the  series  of  financial  crises  which  occurred  in  the  nineteenth 
century  ;  while  at  the  same  time  large  trade  combinations  were 
growing  up  in  every  branch  of  commerce  and  finance. 

When  companies  obtained  command  of  the  railways  as  com- 
petitive enterprises,  they  soon  learned  that  competition  was  a 


322  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

dangerous  form  of  waste.  They  established  non-competitive 
rates  of  transport,  and  this  principle  has  been  followed  in  an 
increasing  ratio  in  every  branch  of  business. 

Competition  has,  while  endeavouring  to  reduce  false  expenses 
by  combination,  steadily  advanced  towards  the  period  when  it 
will  find  its  logical  term  in  monopoly.  Capitalism  is  thus  digging 
its  own  grave,  and  preparing  the  way  for  the  expropriation  of  its 
entire  system  by  the  community. 

Money  disguises  the  whole  process  of  the  robbery  of  labour, 
as  well  as  the  truth  about  the  creation  of  surplus  value  at 
home,  and  the  legal  conveyance  of  booty  (tributes,  payments 
without  commercial  return,  etc.)  from  abroad. 

Gold,  used  for  many  many  centuries  as  a  means  of  facilitating 
exchange  between  societies  on  a  much  less  advanced  social  level 
than  our  own,  fulfils  now,  in  money,  paper  and  credit,  functions 
which  obscure  the  economic  and  social  facts  underlying  financial 
transactions ;  and,  in  some  cases,  gold  acts  as  a  hindrance  to 
continuous  production. 

Thus  the  necessity  which  exists  for  the  capitalist  to  convert 
his  commodities  into  money,  before  he  can  carry  on  his  fresh 
operations,  not  infrequently  prevents  him  from  proceeding  with 
his  business  at  all,  or  only  on  a  very  restricted  scale. 

Wage-earners  are  thus  thrown  out  of  employment,  not  because 
they  are  clamouring  for  impossible  wages,  still  less  because  they 
are  unwilling  to  work,  but  because  the  employing  class  itself 
cannot  produce  at  a  loss,  and  therefore  shuts  down  its  factories 
or  only  nms  them  on  short  time. 

Wages  paid  in  money  seem  to  workers  to  come  to  them  from 
above,  instead  of  being  only  the  value  of  a  portion  of  the  goods 
they  themselves  produce,  paid  to  them  in  the  form  of  money. 
They  owe  tliis  blunder  to  their  own  condition  of  servitude. 

Workers  have  advanced  their  labour  power  to  the  capitalist 
before  they  are  paid  their  wages  for  its  use. 

Capitalists,  as  a  class,  run  no  risks  whatever  ;  the  unfortunate 
in  the  competitive  struggle  for  gain  are  simply  wiped  out  by 
their  competitors,  who  benefit  by  their  downfall. 

Shareholders  in  capitalist  companies  rarely  or  never  render 
any  service  to  the  company,  or  the  community,  as  shareholders. 
In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  they  have  never  visited  the  enter- 
prises from  which  they  draw  their  dividends. 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     323 

In  many  directions  existing  capitalism  in  its  developed  shape 
holds  back  the  adoption  of  great  improvements  and  inventions, 
since  these  tend  to  displace,  and  render  valueless,  capital  on  a 
large  scale  already  invested  in  the  undertakings  wliich  should 
be  improved. 

The  power  of  man  over  nature  is  so  great  in  every  branch  of 
human  industry,  including  agriculture,  that  if  all  the  mechanical 
appliances,  chemical  substances,  motive  forces  and  general 
knowledge  at  the  disposal  of  mankind  in  the  civilisation  of  to-day 
were  applied  co-operatively  to  the  supply  of  useful  goods  and 
social  luxuries,  with  ample  margin  for  collective  exchange, 
"  wealth  might  easily  be  made  as  plentiful  as  water  " — in 
Robert  Owen's  admirably  true  phrase. 

Light,  enjoyable  labour  by  all  members  of  the  community 
would  thus  produce  plenty  for  all,  and  wages  and  prices  would 
disappear. 

The  market  for  commodities  being  now  as  wide  as  the  world, 
the  whole  population  of  the  globe  is  drawn  mto  the  whirl  of 
capitalist  production  for  profit. 

Hence  some  understanding  between  the  wage-earners  of 
various  countries,  even  at  widely  different  stages  of  social 
evolution,  is  most  desirable. 

In  every  case,  however,  the  social  problems  in  separate  nations 
must  be  solved  in  accordance  with  the  stage  of  development 
which  each  country  has  reached,  and  the  historic  traditions 
which  it  has  inherited. 

It  IS  impossible  to  force  higher  economic  forms  upon  a  nation 
in  a  lower  stage  of  development. 

Thorough  education  and  organisation  of  the  wage-slave  class 
to  be  emancipated  is  essential,  before  a  social  transfonnation 
can  be  achieved  from  private  to  collective  production,  and  then 
to  communal  ownership  and  control,  even  when  the  economic 
forms  are  fully  ready  for  such  transformation. 

Certain  assumptions  are  essential  to  a  peaceful  and  successful 
social  revolution  : 

1.  The  economic  and  social  development  must  have  reached 
such  a  level  that  this  social  revolution  is,  sooner  or  later,  in- 
evitable. 

2.  Members  of  the  community,  and  more  especially  the 
workers,  must  be  intellectually  able  to  appreciate  the  social  and 


324  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

economic  conditions  in  which  their  society  moves  and  has  its 
being. 

3.  If  force  is  to  be  used  by  the  workers,  or  if  they  follow  a 
policy  which  must  lead  to  force  being  used  against  them  by  the 
possessing  minority,  then,  in  order  to  escape  reaction  and  its 
consequences,  they  must  decide  on  a  thoroughly  sound  pro- 
gramme beforehand,  and  make  it  universally  known. 

4.  Where  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  combination,  together 
with  political  freedom  and  voting  power,  have  been  secured,  the 
use  of  the  political  weapon  in  the  first  instance  is  by  far  the  best 
course,  and  in  the  long  run  the  most  effective.  This  arises  from 
several  reasons  :  (a)  The  wage-earners  who,  being  too  ignorant 
of  the  real  interests  of  their  class  or  insufficiently  organised, 
will  not  go  to  the  ballot-box  to  vote  for  their  champions,  cer- 
tainly will  never  go  to  the  barricades  to  fight  for  them  effectively ; 
(6)  If  they  mn  on  the  poUtical  field  they  are  in  a  very  much 
stronger  position  to  enter  upon  actual  civil  war,  and  are  ready 
to  take  over  the  machinery  of  government  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  community;  (c)  Direct  action,  by  means  of  successive 
strikes  or  a  general  strike  of  all  the  workers,  would  only  dis- 
organise the  whole  of  the  existing  machinery  of  production  and 
distribution  which  they  desire  to  secure  for  themselves  and  the 
whole  community.  Even  when  the  workers  have  succeeded  in 
paralysmg  industry,  they  must  co-ordinate  the  anarchy  and 
chaos  by  political  means  so  created  through  a  National 
Assembly. 

5.  Also,  in  any  organised  effort  outside  the  political  arena, 
the  growing  ill-feeUng  of  all  not  immediately  concerned  in  the 
strike  when  starvation  set  in,  might  lead  to  a  military  dictator- 
ship of  some  duration,  if  only  to  secure  renewed  peace  and  daily 
sustenance  for  the  majority. 

In  any  reorganisation  of  society  upon  the  Unes  of  co-operation, 
constituted  by  or  in  the  interest  of  the  producing  class  for  the 
advantage  of  the  community,  it  is  imperative  to  begin  with 
the  great  social  powers  which  have  already  reached  the  form 
of  companies,  whether  for  production  or  distribution.  Great 
anonymous  agencies  of  this  kind  are  at  once  ready  for  sociahsa- 
tion.  They  can  be  as  easily  and  better  worked  co-operatively, 
with  experts  employed  by  the  whole  people,  having  common 
interests  in  their  perfect  functioning,  than  by  the  shareholders 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     325 

or  by  the  capitalist  State  bureaucracy,  whose  corruption  and 
inefficiency  are  notorious. 

Thus,  the  beginning  of  the  solution  of  class  antagonism,  and 
the  adaptation  of  capitalism  and  wage  slavery  to  Socialist  or 
Communist  production  and  distribution  would  be  with  the 
railways,  which  in  Great  Britain  are  run  entirely  against  the 
interest  of  the  people,  and  constitute  a  great  scheme  of  protec- 
tion in  favour  of  the  foreigner.  These  ought  never  to  have  been 
allowed  to  go  into  private  hands  at  all,  any  more  than  high-roads, 
bridges,  water  supply  or  any  other  public  service.  Next,  with 
the  mines,  which  provide  the  only  great  and  permanent  source  of 
power  supply  in  the  country  ;  thirdly,  with  the  great  shipping 
industry  ;  fourthly,  with  factories  that  have  nearly  attained 
the  level  of  national  and  international  trusts ;  fifthly,  with 
the  most  important  agencies  of  distribution,  such  as  the 
great  stores  which  have  grown  up  all  over  Britain — stores 
which,  associated  with  the  still  greater  and  far  more  economic- 
ally important  co-operative  stores  (divorced  from  their 
*'  divi  "),  would  slowly  lead  the  way  to  the  socialisation  of  the 
methods  of  distribution.  This  would  lead  to  co-operative 
methods  of  production,  while  capitalism  still  continued  its 
waning  domination  above. 

Lastly  would  come  the  land,  the  most  difficult  problem 
of  all  on  the  road  to  the  new  period  and  the  Co-operative  Com- 
monwealth, National  and  International.  For,  hard  as  socialisa- 
tion of  land  production  is  in  other  countries,  in  this  island  it  is 
hardest  of  all.  Elsewhere,  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  still  culti- 
vators, are  accustomed  to  the  hardships  connected  with  handUng 
the  soil,  mostly  own  their  own  land,  which  they  dig  and  plough 
and  watch  and  tend  with  unremitting  assiduity — not  in  the 
company  form,  and  therefore  unripe  for  socialisation,  but 
capable  of  being  brought  within  the  co-operative  circle  by 
creameries,  elevators,  cold-storage  buildings  and  the  like.  Here, 
however,  there  are  no  peasantry,  no  metayers,  no  independent 
producers.  We  have  only  landowners,  capitalist  farmers,  agri- 
cultural labourers,  mere  proletarians  of  the  soil  (just  as  the 
artisans  and  casual  laboiu-ers  are  proletarians  of  the  cities), 
and,  all  taken  together,  constituting  only  a  small  minority  of 
the  entire  population.  Nationalisation  and  socialisation  of  the 
land   is   mdispensable,   inevitable,   sooner   or   later ;    for   our 


326  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

nation  cannot  continue  to  draw  half  its  entire  sustenance  and 
six-sevenths  of  all  its  bread  from  foreign  countries,  some  of 
them  thousands  of  miles  distant  from  its  shores.  Will  circum- 
stances so  order  things  that  we  shall  be  driven,  regardless  of 
economic  advisability,  to  attempt  to  solve  this  last  problem 
first? 

How  to  popularise  these  ideas  when,  owing  to  their  lack  of 
education,  it  is  so  desperately  difficult  to  induce  the  workers, 
brought  up  through  three  generations  of  capitalism,  and  prac- 
tically unable  to  reason  from  the  wage  slavery  of  production  for 
other  men's  profit  to  production  for  their  own  and  other  people's 
use  ?  How  to  persuade  them  that  only  by  getting  rid  of  wages, 
high  or  low,  altogether  could  they  rid  themselves  and  their 
children  of  never-ending  anxiety,  by  obtaining  through  common 
labour,  plenty,  enjoyment  and  leisure  for  all  ?  The  truth  had 
to  be  put  before  them  at  first  in  plain  language,  with  common- 
place illustrations  drawn  from  the  facts  of  their  daily  life. 
History,  economic  theory.  Socialist  proposals,  were  introduced 
afterwards.  It  was  a  procession  upwards,  from  the  orange-box 
at  the  dock  gates  or  factory  lane,  to  the  lecture-room  and  the 
public  hall. 

To  make  the  suggestion,  even,  of  their  own  emancipation  from 
degrading  toil  to  unknown  freedom  acceptable,  stepping-stones 
to  the  new  period,  or  palliatives  of  existing  conditions,  were 
bound  to  be  introduced.  These  were  the  eight-hour  day,  free 
education,  gratuitous  feeding  of  children  in  the  elementary 
schools,  work  for  all,  overwork  for  none,  organisation  of  un- 
employed labour  on  useful  production,  control  of  municipalities 
and  municipal  services,  the  sweeping  away  of  miserable  charity 
which  curses  him  who  gives  and  him  who  takes. 

Such  were  the  facts  and  theories,  such  the  minor  proposals  put 
before  the  workers,  of  Great  Britain,  with  unflagging  zeal  and  un- 
wearying fanaticism,  by  the  pioneers  of  the  Social  Democratic 
Federation  for  thirty-three  full  years.  Others  were  working  in 
the  same  direction  in  their  own  way.  Their  intention  was  to 
prepare  the  ground  for  a  peaceful  and  beneficial  revolution,  such 
as  economic  evolution  rendered  certain  eventually,  by  education 
of  the  workers  in  the  first  place,  and  of  the  intellectual  portion 
of  the  well-to-do  class  in  the  second.  For  propaganda  was  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  street  corners  or  the  public  halls  in  the 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     327 

metropolis  and  the  great  industrial  centres.  The  Universities 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  themselves  were  approached,  not  to 
say  attacked,  in  the  eighties.  Socialistic  groups  were  formed 
later ;  and,  so  far  as  a  policy  of  permeation  of  the  middle  class 
could  be  successful  in  weakening  the  resistance  of  the  possible 
enemy,  the  Fabian  Society  did  its  work  well  in  that  respect. 
A  reasonable  collectivism  of  a  bureaucratic  type,  though  based 
on  political  democracy,  came  gradually  to  be  regarded  as  quite 
a  possible  transition  stage  by  the  more  intelligent  of  the  pro- 
fessional and  literary  men. 

When  the  great  Trade  Unions,  combining  together,  took 
part  in  and  defrayed  the  expenses  of  the  imposing  International 
Socialist  Congress  held  at  the  Queen's  Hall  in  London,  in  1896, 
it  really  looked  like  an  important  advance  towards  bringing  the 
aristocracy  of  labour  to  make  common  cause  with  Social  Demo- 
crats in  Great  Britain,  in  a  strenuous  effort  to  build  up  a  genuine 
Socialist  party,  which  would  enter  into  relations  with  similar 
working-class  parties  on  the  continent  of  Europe  and  elsewhere. 
But  the  English  move  slowly.  Not  until  nearly  twenty  years 
later  did  the  Trade  Unions  and  their  members  begin  to  look  upon 
domestic  and  foreign  working-class  industrial  interests  from  the 
Socialist  point  of  view.  Trade  Unionists  they  were,  and  Trade 
Unionists  they  would  remain  :  wages,  higher  wages,  they  could 
understand;  shorter  hours  at  the  same  wages  seemed  advan- 
tageous— anything  beyond  this  they  still  failed  to  comprehend. 
But  from  this  narrow  basis,  and  by  way  of  pious  resolutions  in 
favour  of  land  nationalisation  and  secular  education,  etc.,  the 
Trade  Unions  gathered  numbers  and  influence,  until  by  degrees 
a  demand  arose  for  political  action,  and  the  Labour  Party  was 
formed,  to  give  expression  to  this  great  change  of  opinion. 

It  was  undoubtedly  a  very  great  change  of  opinion,  and  one 
which  Social  Democrats  had  always  striven  to  bring  about. 
After  some  years  of  organisation  and  agitation,  always  conducted 
with  a  strange  sort  of  friendly  deference  to  the  capitalist  Liberal 
party,  a  relatively  small  number  of  genuine  Labour  men  were 
returned  to  the  House  of  Commons,  at  the  General  Election  of 
1906.  But  it  was  clear  how  little  the  real  position  in  regard  to 
class  antagonism  was  even  then  understood,  seeing  that  the 
majority  of  the  Labour  members  were  elected  by  bargaining 
with  the  Liberal  organisations  for  votes,  and  the  chairman  of  the 


328  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

party  himself  obtained  three-fourths  of  his  votes,  as  a  winning 
Labour  candidate,  from  that  source.  Nevertheless,  this  election 
was  generally  regarded  as  a  forward  move  for  the  political 
Socialists ;  and  at  the  celebration  of  the  victory  of  the  Labour 
members  at  a  great  meeting  in  London,  the  haJl  was  decorated 
all  over  with  Socialist  flags  and  mottoes. 

Unfortunately,  the  policy  of  trimming  and  moderation  which 
had  been  adopted  in  the  constituencies  was  followed  in  Parliament. 
It  would  have  been  impossible,  with  only  thirty  members,  to  have 
carried  Socialist  measures.  But  at  least  the  foundation  of  an 
independent  nucleus  for  future  purposes  might  have  been  laid. 
This,  however,  was  not  done.  Only  on  matters  of  direct  Trade 
Union  interest,  in  which  the  ordinary  legal  proceedings  of  Trade 
Unions  had  been  interfered  with  by  hos^^ile  class  judgments  in 
the  courts,  or  on  measures  of  a  purely  philanthropic  character  of 
no  real  economic  significance,  such  as  the  small  and  very  limited 
Old  Age  Pensions  Bill,  did  the  Labour  Party  show  any  vigour, 
and  then  still  in  hearty  co-operation  with  the  Liberals  who,  on 
all  important  social  issues,  were  their  most  dangerous,  because 
most  insidious,  enemies.  It  is  this  miserable  addiction  to  com- 
promise, which  surrenders  all  principles  and  looks  only  to  petty 
immediate  gains  of  no  real  value,  that  has  been  the  curse  of  the 
English  working  class  for  many  a  long  year. 

This  was  accompanied,  until  quite  lately,  with  a  marked 
susceptibility  to  the  social  influence  of  the  manners  and  tone 
of  the  highly  educated  class,  together  with  a  singular  deference 
to  those  "  forms  of  the  House "  which  have  been  specially 
instituted  and  are  maintained  for  the  benefit  of  well-to-do 
representatives.  To  show  how  completely  the  workers  are 
in  the  toils  of  the  old  traditions  and  old  prejudices  of  the 
classes  over  against  them,  it  is  enough  to  cite  the  fact  that 
the  Game  Laws,  inherited  from  William  the  Conqueror  and 
William  Rufus,  still  remain  on  the  Statute  Book,  though  it  is 
notorious  that  they  are  not  only  monstrous  in  themselves,  but 
by  encouraging  non-cultivation  of  land  and  by  damaging  crops, 
are  economically  most  injurious.  Yet  even  now,  in  the  year 
1920,  no  attempt  has  been  made  in  the  House  of  Commons  to 
obtain  their  abrogation  by  Act  of  Parliament !  Members  of  the 
Labour  Party  who  have  hesitated  to  attack  a  flagrant  social 
abuse,  which  has  been  denounced  even  by  Radicals  for  years, 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     329 

obviously  have  no  abiding  sense  of  their  own  duties  and 
responsibilities. 

The  same  statements  and  criticisms  apply  to  the  remforced 
Labour  Party,  which  returned  more  than  forty  members  at  the 
elections  of  1910.  Superficially,  they  were  committed  to  nation- 
alisation in  more  than  one  direction,  but  their  fatal  connection 
with  Liberalism  still  hampered  anything  approaching  to  inde- 
pendent Socialist  action.  At  the  same  time  the  vehement 
opposition  of  the  majority  of  the  whole  party,  as  represented  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  to  any  reasonable  preparations  for 
resistance  to  the  manifestly  aggressive  policy  of  the  German 
Government,  weakened  their  influence  throughout  the  country. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  obvious  pro-GJermanism  of  several  of  the 
leaders  reduced  almost  to  nothing  the  power  of  the  party  to  stop 
hostilities,  by  convincing  German  statesmen  that,  no  matter 
what  military  steps  Germany  took,  the  Liberals  would  not  dare 
to  declare  war,  and  that,  even  if  they  did,  they  would  be  swept 
out  of  office  by  an  indignant  nation  of  traders  and  pacifists. 

It  was  a  desperate  blunder  on  the  part  of  Germany,  but  a 
scarcely  less  fatal  mistake  on  the  part  of  Labourists.  For  they 
lost  the  opportunity  of  bargaining  with  the  Government  for  the 
support  of  the  workers,  when  the  war  began,  in  return  for  far- 
reaching  social  changes;  and  they  were  swept  along,  with  the  tide 
of  general  national  feehng,  first  into  the  great  rush  of  volun- 
teering and  then  into  conscription,  to  meet  the  terrific  drain  of 
men  necessary  for  a  world  war.  All  that  thirty-three  years  of 
assiduous  Socialist  propaganda  had  been  able  to  effect  in  our 
strangely  stolid  England  had  been  to  make  ready  for  a  flabby 
Labour  Party,  which  could  not  even  take  advantage  of  such  a 
magnificent  chance  as  came  their  way  in  August,  1914.  Once 
more  it  seemed  as  if,  ripe  though  the  economic  conditions  for 
collective  and  Socialist  co-ordination  were,  the  ignorance  of  the 
wage-earners  themselves  was  impervious  to  any  social  enlighten- 
ment. A  Socialist  atmosphere  had  been  created  above  and 
below,  but  no  clear  thought,  or  definite  action,  had  been 
brought  to  bear  on  the  problems  of  the  time. 

At  this  date,  August,  1914,  when  Great  Britain  had  been  first 
the  most  important,  and  then,  always  in  a  relatively  descending 
scale,  one  of  the  three  leading  industrial  powers  of  the  world, 
the  social  conditions  were  abominably  bad,  so  bad  that  it  again 


330  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

seemed  marvellous  that  no  organised  effort,  either  political  and 
peaceful,  or  forcible  and  anarchic,  had  been  made  to  overthrow 
them.  For  with  London  the  centre  of  the  financial  world,  with 
England's  supremacy  in  shipping  still  maintained,  with  the 
wealth  derived  from  India  pouring  into  her  lap,  and  the 
productions  of  her  colonies  largely  at  her  command,  this  was 
in  brief  the  social  condition  of  the  population  : 

1.  England  had  a  much  larger  number  of  parasites  in  pro- 
portion to  her  population  than  any  other  country  in  the  world. 

2.  England  had  a  greater  area  of  wretched  insanitary  slums 
in  proportion  to  her  population  than  any  civilised  country  in 
the  world. 

3.  England  had  a  larger  acreage  of  good  tillable  land  un- 
cultivated in  proportion  to  the  population  to  be  fed  than  any 
other  civilised  country  in  the  world. 

4.  England  paid  a  smaller  remuneration  to  her  working 
population  in  proportion  to  her  total  wealth  than  any  country 
in  the  world. 

5.  England  imported,  from  inferior  soils  thousands  of  miles 
away,  six-sevenths  of  the  wheat  necessary  to  supply  her  with 
bread. 

Why,  then,  was  it  worth  the  while  of  her  wage-earners  to 
fight  against  Germany  in  defence  of  such  a  state  of  things,  when 
Germany,  in  spite  of  her  tyrannous  militarism  and  Junkerdom, 
took  more  care  of  the  physical  and  educational  condition  of 
her  people  than  the  governing  classes  of  Great  Britain  did  of 
their  wage-earners  and  dependents  ?  Because,  as  the  English 
saw  at  once,  capitalism  dominated  by  Junkerdom  would  be 
worse  than  capitalism  under  a  political  and  social  system  which 
would  soon  enable  the  last  form  of  human  domination  to  be 
overthrown.  This,  partly  conscious,  partly  unconscious,  was 
the  motive  which  took  the  wage-earners  of  Great  Britain  on  to 
the  battle-field,  where  the  parasitical  and  expropriating  class 
were,  as  a  class,  with  some  exceptions,  fighting  for  the  main- 
tenance of  their  own  supremacy. 

For  fully  twenty  years  before  the  war  it  was  clear  to  all  who 
knew  Germany,  and  read  easily  the  German  papers  and  reviews, 
that  preparations  were  being  made  for  a  struggle  to  the  death 
against  France  and  Great  Britain  by  land  and  by  sea.     Our 


A  CO-OPERATWE  COMMONWEALTH     331 

workers  were  deceived  into  the  belief  that  this  was  impossible, 
because  our  great  employers,  bankers,  and  the  rich  generally, 
were  willing  to  run  the  risk  so  long  as  they  gained  more  wealth. 
They  therefore  risked  the  issue.  The  workers,  left  unpre- 
pared and  untrained  by  the  political  representatives  of  capital, 
fought  and  won  the  war ;  and,  but  for  the  politicians,  would 
have  won  it  at  least  two  years  before.  This  would  have  saved 
themselves  and  their  families  countless  sacrifices. 

But  how  did  the  nation  win  the  war  ?  By  throwing  aside  the 
capitalism  and  competition  which  had  exploited  the  community 
in  peace,  and  by  taking  control  of  the  resources  of  the  Empire 
by  the  whole  community  for  the  purposes  of  war.  That  was  a 
complete  reversal  of  all  previous  policy.  Not  to  go  back  to  the 
long  and  exhausting  twenty  years'  struggle  against  Napoleon, 
nothing  of  the  sort  was  done  in  the  Crimean,  or  in  the  South 
African  War.  In  both  of  these  cases,  outside  of  the  great  State 
workshops  at  Portsmouth,  Chatham,  Woolwich,  etc.,  established 
and  maintained  by  the  Government  for  long  periods  beforehand, 
the  rest  of  the  necessary  work  was  done  by  capitalist  firms  in- 
dependent of  any  official  control.  Although,  also,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Bank  of  England  suspended 
cash  payments,  there  was  no  direct  Government  aid  to  the 
private  banks.  Of  course  the  economic  conditions  were  very 
different,  but  the  contrast  in  method  is  nevertheless  remarkable. 

More  remarkable  still,  no  protest  was  raised  against  the  course 
adopted  immediately  on  the  outbreak  of  war.  The  Government 
was,  in  fact,  driven  to  prompt  State  action,  in  order  to  prevent 
capitalist  finance  and  capitalist  production,  as  well  as  distribu- 
tion, from  breaking  down  altogether.  The  Administration  was 
compelled  to  use  State  credit.  State  control  and  State  capital  in 
order  to  pursue  its  contradictory  policy  of  "  keeping  the  present 
system  " — the  capitalist-competitive  system,  that  is  to  say— 
"  in  being."  This  they  officially  declared  to  be  their  object. 
If  State  control  and  partial  State  ownership  were  undertaken 
by  Mr  Asquith's  Liberal,  laissez-faire  administration,  it  was, 
therefore,  because  this  was  the  only  way  to  meet  the  temporary 
emergency,  whilst  carefully  preparing  for  a  return  to  the  old 
system  "  after  the  war." 

Thus  it  came  about  that,  in  1914,  when  all  English  politicians 
believed,  or  pretended  to  believe,  that  the  conflict  with  the 


332  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Central  Powers  would  be  a  short  war,  the  Ministry  in  office  began 
to  use  State  powers  on  a  scale  quite  unprecedented.  First  it 
gave  way  to  a  shriek  for  help  from  the  great  Joint-Stock  Banks 
of  the  Clearing-House.  The  directors  all  saw  that,  if  they  were 
left  entirely  to  their  own  resources,  they  would  either  have  to 
call  up  forthwith  the  unpaid  margin  on  the  subscribed  shares 
held  by  their  shareholders,  get  State  aid  in  some  shape,  or  go 
bankrupt.  Why  they  should  not  have  been  left  to  take  the 
first  course,  which  was  the  proper,  business-like  way  of  proceed- 
ing, has  never  been  explained.  But,  in  fact,  what  occurred  needs 
no  explanation.  Private  finance,  as  represented  by  the  share- 
holders, had  to  be  propitiated.  So  the  Government  at  once 
granted  a  moratorium  against  the  public  and  in  favour  of  the 
banks.  The  legislature,  that  is  to  say,  rushed  in  to  protect,  or 
save  from  bankruptcy,  institutions  which  had  been,  and  still  were, 
paying  heavy  dividends  on  shares,  a  great  part  of  whose  nominal 
amount  consisted  in  uncalled  capital.  So  enormous  is  the  in- 
fluence of  these  great  banking  institutions  that  the  Government 
policy  in  favour  of  their  shareholders  was  accepted  almost 
without  demur.  Few  saw  what  a  strong  argument  would  be 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  mass  of  the  community,  in  the  near 
future,  in  support  of  a  demand  for  the  nationalisation  of  the  vast 
establishments,  now  almost  a  monopoly,  and  the  constitution  of 
a  State  Bank  covering  their  whole  field  of  financial  operations. 
Simultaneously  with  the  banks  the  railways  had  to  be  dealt 
with.  Here  it  was  at  once  manifest  that,  if  the  various  com- 
panies were  left  without  any  attempt  at  co-ordination,  the  war 
transport  could  not  be  carried  on  effectively.  So  the  Govern- 
ment took  control,  guaranteeing  to  the  debenture  and  share- 
holders, during  the  term  of  the  war,  all  the  dividends  and  profits 
they  had  previously  earned !  This  was  an  exceedingly  good 
arrangement  for  the  shareholders,  whose  property  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  commandeered  on  much  more  advantageous 
terms,  had  the  question  of  their  remuneration  come  before  an 
independent  arbitrator.  But,  whether  the  arrangement  was 
good  or  bad,  it  was  so  contrived  as  to  hand  over  to  the  State 
the  actual  administration  of  the  railways,  in  concert  with  the 
shareholders,  and  without  conceding  to  the  people  any  future 
property  in  the  indispensable  means  of  transport  represented  by 
the  railroads. 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COIVIMONWEALTH     333 

One  serious  effect  of  thus  accepting  the  principle  of  State 
control  without  applying  it  to  details,  and  generally  fusing 
companies,  was  seen  in  the  chaotic  waste  involved  by  not  pool- 
ing the  wagons  belonging  to  the  different  companies,  but  leaving 
them  and  the  private  wagons  to  be  hauled  empty,  hither  and 
thither,  for  no  useful  purpose  whatever.  All  this  muddle  arose 
from  the  Government's  disinclination  to  apply  fully,  in  practice, 
the  nationahsation  of  railways  which  they  had  been  forced  to 
adopt  partially  in  actual  work,  and  wholly  in  principle.  The 
result  of  this,  on  the  return  of  peace,  has  been  the  reduction  to 
sheer  anarchy  of  our  entire  system  of  transport;  and  has  strongly 
fortified  the  contention  of  those  who  maintain  that  nothing 
short  of  complete  socialisation  will  solve  the  problem.  Obvi- 
ously the  railwaymen  and  workers  generally,  who  are  now  de- 
manding this  step  towards  thorough  national  organisation,  in  the 
interests  of  themselves  and  the  community  at  large,  have  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  mismanagement  that  followed 
the  inefTicient  State  control.  Yet,  somehow,  the  work 
necessary  during  the  war  was  done. 

Shipping  naturally  followed  upon  railways.  Transport,  under 
national  management,  of  men  and  war  material  by  sea  was  as 
essential  as  transport  of  men  and  war  material  by  land.  That 
was  at  once  admitted  and  acted  upon.  The  rights  of  the  com- 
mimity  were  recognised  as  overriding  the  rights  of  shipowners. 
But  here  again  our  rulers,  while  giving  way  upon  the  principle 
of  private  arrangements,  could  not  at  first  perceive  that  tem- 
porising is  always  a  mistaken  policy  in  stirring  times.  The 
Government  commandeered  only  1500  of  the  largest  ships  for 
State  purposes.  The  result  of  this  was  that  rates  of  freight  ran 
up  to  unheard-of  figures,  for  vessels  left  under  private  manage- 
ment. As  commandeering  extended,  this  became  more  and  more 
apparent.  But,  even  as  it  was,  national  control,  by  which  vessels 
were  run  on  the  public  account,  proved  an  immense  saving  to  the 
public,  as  against  the  wholesale  confiscation  by  excessive  rates 
of  freight  to  which  they  would  otherwise  have  had  to  submit 
from  the  shipowners  and  their  companies.  National  control 
and  temporary  ownership  were  proved  to  be  not  only  indispens- 
able but  generally  beneficial.  The  deductions  which  are  being 
drawn  from  this  fact,  in  regard  to  further  steps  in  the  same 
direction,  necessarily  follow. 


334  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

If,  however,  capitalist  banking,  capitalist  railways  and 
capitalist  shipping  demanded  national  co-ordination,  even  to 
preserve  the  owners  themselves  from  destruction,  mines  come 
into  the  same  category ;  and  the  more  so  since  300,000  coal 
miners  actually  volunteered  to  train  and  to  go  to  the  front  long 
before  conscription  was  enacted.  Coal,  therefore,  was  put 
under  national  control  also,  being  essential  in  Great  Britain 
to  the  working  of  all  industries  and  distributive  agencies.  The 
effect  of  this  upon  the  miners,  as  of  partial  nationalisation  upon 
the  railway  workers,  will  be  seen  later.  With  mines  and  coal, 
nevertheless,  as  with  other  matters,  even  the  most  resolute  anti- 
collectivists  were  forced  to  concede  that  the  affairs  of  the  nation 
took  precedence,  in  war,  of  all  private  or  company  rights. 

But  the  change  did  not  end  here  by  any  means.  It  is  doubt- 
ful, indeed,  whether  the  dominant  class  of  our  day  apprehended 
the  extraordinary  effect  which  the  next  step  in  the  direction  of 
State  management  and  collectivism  had  upon  the  mind  of  the 
entire  working  population  of  Great  Britain.  This  effect,  though 
great,  was  not  so  promptly  seen  as  in  the  previous  cases.  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  action  of  the  Government  in 
taking  control  of  great  factories,  and  still  more  in  commandeer- 
ing, extending  and  fitting  up  with  the  best  and  newest  machinery 
other  buildings,  for  necessary  public  work,  made  a  deep  im- 
pression. "  If,"  men  and  women  of  intelligence  asked  them- 
selves, "  all  this  transformation  can  be  brought  about  by  the 
national  administration  in  order  to  kill  or  maim  men  in  war, 
why  should  not  the  same  national  machinery  be  used,  under  our 
own  control,  to  maintain  the  whole  community  in  peace  ?  " 
That  thought  has  been  passing  through  an  ever-increasing 
number  of  minds,  since  the  war  came  to  an  end,  when  these 
great  engines  of  production  were  handed  back  to  the  employing 
class,  instead  of  being  kept  in  national  hands  for  the  provision 
of  useful  goods  for  all. 

The  alteration  in  dealing  with  the  land  did  not  go  anything 
like  so  far  as  in  other  directions.  Indeed  very  little  has  been 
done.  Although,  at  one  point  in  the  submarine  campaign.  Great 
Britain  was  within  three  weeks  of  starvation,  the  Government, 
in  which  Conservative  influences  prevailed,  preferred  to  run  the 
risk  of  famine  for  the  many  rather  than  face  the  opposition  of 
the  30,000  landlords  who  own  the  island,  the  capitalist  farmers 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     335 

who  cultivate  the  soil  by  the  help  of  landless  agricultural 
labourers,  and  the  shipowners  whose  interests  are  bound  up  in 
conveying  large  imports  from  abroad,  by  encouraging  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil  at  home.  Some  small  improvements  were  made, 
and  more  land,  about  2,000,000  acres,  were  brought  under  tillage 
to  meet  the  threatening  danger.  But  the  old  Game  Laws, 
which  had  led  to  less  and  less  cultivation,  were  still  upheld,  and 
little  attention  was  paid  to  the  fact  that  rats  consmned  the 
enormous  quantity  of  wheat  and  grain  represented  by  the  sum 
of  £20,000,000  yearly  ^ — tliis  loss  rendering  the  population  more 
dependent  upon  wheat  brought  in  from  without.  The  power 
of  the  farmers,  who,  although  singularly  deficient  in  agricul- 
tural skill,  showed  remarkable  aptitude  in  taking  heavy  toll  of 
the  population  over  milk,  meat  and  wheat,  was  increased  rather 
than  lessened.  Hence  the  most  difficult  problem  of  all,  in  the 
coming  transition  period,  remains  practically  untouched. 

At  the  same  time  that  these  various  experiments  in  collective 
administration — much  of  it  corrupt,  wasteful  and  inefficient — 
were  perforce  being  made,  the  distribution  of  food  took  quite  a 
new  shape.  A  Ministry  of  Food  was  established,  at  first  under  the 
control  of  a  multiple  shopowner,  not  directly  interested  in  making 
the  new  department  a  success.  Unquestionably  he  made  it  far 
other  than  a  success.  But,  when  the  threatening  attitude  of  the 
people  compelled  the  adoption  of  a  reasonable  policy,  another 
type  of  Minister  was  appointed ;  and  the  principle  was  estab- 
lished that,  in  time  of  war,  at  least,  the  producers  of  the  country 
were  entitled  to  their  full  share  of  all  the  food  that  was  to  be 
had,  and  that  they  and  their  wives  and  children  should  be  con- 
sidered as  far  as  was  possible  under  such  a  society  as  still  exists. 
Efforts  were  made  to  control  prices  by  cost  of  production  ;  and 
the  general  opinion  steadily  grew  that  profiteers  who  gained  to 
an  unprecedented  extent  by  the  war  were  little  better  than 
pirates.  All  this  did  much  to  shake  the  foundations  of  the 
whole  school  of  economics  created  in  the  interest  of  those  same 
capitalists  and  profiteers. 

Unfortunately,  in  this  direction  Ukewise,  ^he  middle-class 
administrators  refused  to  adopt  a  definite  policy  which  might 
lead  to  a  peaceful  reconstruction.  Though  the  Co-operative 
Wholesale  Stores,  who  conduct  their  business  on  non-profit- 

^  They  consumed  more  than  twice  that  value  in  19 19. 


336  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

making  lines,  supply  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  entire  popula- 
tion, and  consist  of  workers  having  direct  control  of  their  own 
affairs,  the  Government  twice  refused  to  accept  their  offer  to 
put  the  whole  of  this  fine  machinery  at  the  disposal  of  the 
nation,  for  expansion  on  the  same  principles  to  serve  the  people 
at  large.  How  very  far  this  would  have  led  towards  a  general 
co-operative  instead  of  competitive  system  of  distribution,  and 
how  easy  and  beneficial  it  would  have  been  to  extend  during 
the  war  into  production  on  a  large  scale,  is  obvious.  But  the 
influences  of  other  classes  were  too  powerful  to  allow  the  states- 
manlike policy  of  the  working-class  co-operators  to  be  accepted. 

Certain  it  is  that  all  the  successive  advances  previously  men- 
tioned, and  the  consequent  general  opinion  of  the  time,  helped 
on  by  the  economic  development,  have  done  more  to  awaken 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  what  collective  and  co-operative  agencies 
may  do  for  their  benefit,  under  the  control  of  the  community, 
than  many  years  of  further  Socialist  and  Labour  propaganda 
would  have  been  able  to  effect.  The  question  now,  even  among 
reactionaries,  is,  how  the  persistent  cry  from  the  masses  for 
better  conditions  of  existence  should  be  conveniently  met,  not 
how  it  should  be  suppressed  altogether. 

Meanwhile,  however,  working-class  combinations  in  Great 
Britain  are  growing  more  rapidly,  and  are  becoming  more  for- 
midable than  anywhere  else.  Agitations  and  strikes  for  higher 
wages  went  on,  as  prices  rose  steadily  during  the  war.  Serious 
difficulties  were  only  avoided  by  surrender  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  to  the  claims  of  Trade  Unions,  by  appeals  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  workers,  and  by  taking  leading  Trade  Unionists 
into  a  Coalition  Administration.  This  policy,  however,  neither 
checked  the  growth  of  working-class  organisations,  nor  damped 
down  that  rising  demand  for  nationalisation  and  socialisation  of 
monopolies  which  had  so  long  been  advocated  by  Socialists. 
Now  upwards  of  6,500,000  Trade  Unionists,  embracing  no  longer 
only  the  skilled  artisans  who  form  the  aristocracy  of  labour,  but 
a  large  portion  of  the  agricultural  labourers  and  unskilled 
workers  of  all  kiffids,  voice  at  their  Congress  the  aspirations  in 
this  direction  of  above  half  of  the  population  of  the  island. 
Since  the  Armistice  this  powerful  agglomeration  of  the  forces 
of  the  proletariat  has  gained  confidence  in  its  own  strength. 
Nor  has  the  comparative  failure  of  the  Labour  Party  in  the 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     337 

political  field  lessened  the  feeling  that,  sooner  or  later,  the 
future  is  to  the  workers  of  this  country. 

Nothing  has  aided  their  conviction  more  than  the  closer  con- 
nection recently  estabUshed  with  the  Co-operative  Movement. 
Taken  together,  the  two  organisations  represent  much  more  than 
half  the  population  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  idea  at  present  is 
that  they  should  work  harmoniously  with  one  another,  in  much 
the  same  way  that  the  Co-operators  and  Socialists  of  Belgiimi 
make  common  cause  on  all  occasions  when  the  class  struggle 
becomes  acute.  The  significance  of  this  consoUdation  of  in- 
terests can  only  be  disregarded  by  those  who  are  determined 
not  to  recognise  the  conditions  which  surround  them.  The  fact 
that  the  conservative  co-operators  have  entered  the  political 
arena,  standing  for  elections  with  what  is  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  a  SociaHst  programme,  is  another  incident  which  shows 
the  tendency  of  the  time. 

The  incUnation  of  the  great  majority  of  wage-earners  of  Great 
Britam  has  been  to  use  political  action  in  the  interest  of  their 
class,  with  the  object,  in  the  long  run,  of  obtaining  direct  control 
over  the  industrial  forces  of  the  nation.  This  is  true  to-day. 
But  the  failure  of  the  Labour  Party  to  secure  the  number  of 
seats  to  which  it  was  unquestionably  entitled  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  if  the  House  is  to  be  regarded  as  truly  representative 
of  the  people,  has  lent  force  to  the  contentions  of  another  section 
which  made  way  in  the  workshops,  and  generally  among  the 
more  active  and  discontented  wage-earners  during  the  war. 
It  has  gained  more  ground  still  since  the  peace,  owing  to  the 
poor  show  made  by  the  political  element  at  the  last  General 
Election,  and  the  lack  of  vigour  and  initiative  displayed  by 
the  Labour  members  who  were  sent  to  Westminster. 

The  policy  which  is  favoured  by  these  so-called  extremists  is 
that  of  "  direct  action."  This  means  that,  wherever  the  wage- 
earning  class  is  sufficiently  organised  and  disciplined,  they  should 
use  the  dangerous  weapon  of  the  general  strike,  no  longer  merely 
to  obtain  higher  wages,  but  to  gain  possession  of  all  the  great 
industrial  forces  of  the  nation ;  thus  bringing  about  a  definite 
social  revolution  at  one  blow,  whether  the  bulk  of  the  people,  or 
even  the  Trade  Unionists  themselves,  who  are  the  only  really 
well-organised  section,  are  thoroughly  prepared  for  such  a  com- 
plete transformation  or  not.    This  is  undoubtedly  a  policy. 


338  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

As  formulated  by  its  chief  advocates,  it  aims  at  the  entire 
emancipation  of  the  workers,  and  all  other  classes,  from  the 
mastery  of  the  capitalist  system,  and  the  substitution  of  Syndi- 
calism, the  control  of  each  trade  by  the  combined  workers  in  that 
trade — a  scheme  that  has  never  been  even  partially  thought  out 
— or  "guild"  Sociahsm,  for  existing  social  arrangements.  Since 
direct  action,  by  the  cessation  of  work  in  all  the  most  important 
branches  of  production  and  distribution,  has  fervent  propagand- 
ists and  supporters  in  every  civilised  country,  it  is  well  to  survey 
briefly  the  disadvantages  attaching  to  this  plan  of  campaign, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  workers  themselves,  as  opposed  to 
the  slower,  but  apparently  more  effective,  and  certainly  less  pro- 
vocative means  of  political  combination  and  the  educated  use 
of  the  vote.  It  may  be  assumed  that,  in  both  cases,  the  object 
is  the  same :  not  the  enactment  of  palhative  reforms  under 
capitalism,  nor  the  obtaining  of  higher  wages  under  existing  cir- 
cumstances, but  the  inmiediate  establishment  of  a  Co-operative 
Commonwealth  or  Communist  Republic.  That  is,  in  fact,  the 
emancipation  of  the  whole  wage-slave  class. 

It  must  be  noted  that  every  general  strike  yet  attempted  in 
Belgium,  France  and  Sweden  has  completely  failed.  This  would 
be  by  no  means  a  conclusive  argument  against  it  if  it  were  the 
only  objection.  The  United  Kingdom  differs  from  all  these 
nations,  and  from  every  other  nation,  as  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  in  one  very  important  particular.  The  whole  of  the 
working  classes  of  England,  Scotland  and  Wales  are  divorced 
from  the  soil.  There  is  no  conservative  peasant  population  as 
there  is  everywhere  else.  Consequently,  the  economic  antagon- 
ism of  the  country  to  the  town  appears  only  in  the  landlords 
and  farmers,  who  together  constitute  a  very  small  proportion  of 
the  whole  population.  The  agricultural  labourers  S3mipathise 
with,  and  are  impelled  by  the  same  motives  as  the  wage-earners 
in  the  towns.  If  a  general  strike  were  called,  therefore,  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  about  nationaUsation  of  the  land,  among 
other  things,  there  is  no  reason  why  these  labourers  should  not 
side  with  the  others. 

It  cannot  be  doubted,  however,  that  if  direct  action  took  so 
wide  a  sweep  as  is  contemplated,  involving  the  cessation  of  work 
in  the  mines,  on  the  railways,  at  the  docks,  wharves  and  else- 
where, this  would  almost  inevitably  lead  to  civil  war.     There 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     339 

may  easily  then  arise  differences  between  the  strikers  them- 
selves ;  for  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  men  who  are  too  slow 
and  careless  to  vote  for  their  own  class  champions  would  de- 
velop a  whole-souled  eagerness  to  fight  for  themselves  and  their 
class.  Starvation  is  apt  to  turn  even  enthusiasts  for  overthrow 
into  partisans  of  a  military  dictatorship.  No  Government,  also, 
would,  or  could  surrender  at  once  to  such  an  organised  arrest  of 
the  functions  of  the  whole  national  life,  without  a  desperate 
effort,  in  which  all  the  resources  of  civilisation  would  be  used. 
Is  it  advisable  even  to  threaten  to  resort  to  such  desperate 
tactics,  when  the  alternative  of  political  action  is  still  open  ? 
Is  it  well  to  risk  a  defeat,  which  might  throw  back,  for  a  whole 
generation,  that  steady  advance  towards  the  greatest  economic 
and  social  revolution  the  world  has  ever  seen,  a  revolution  which 
the  intending  strikers  are  convinced  is  now  inevitable  within  a 
calculable  period  ?  Moreover,  if  success  were  assured,  it  is  more 
difficult  to  keep  than  to  conquer,  as  the  Egyptian  priest  told 
Alexander  the  Great,  unless  a  sound  programme  of  reorganisation 
and  administration  is  formulated  and  circulated  beforehand. 
The  reaction  upon  failure  after  victory  would  be  terrible. 

With  political  action,  for  which  our  forbears  fought  so  stoutly, 
and  for  which  at  last  we  have  secured  the  effective  means,  there 
is  far  less  danger  of  armed  conflict.  Every  year  that  passes,  as 
events  move  to-day,  tells  more  and  more  decisively  in  favour  of 
the  economic  and  social  freedom  of  the  workers.  Every  year 
there  is  less  and  less  danger  of  reaction,  if  the  workers  are  only 
true  to  themselves  and  compel  their  leaders  to  lead.  All  the 
time,  too,  the  people  are  learning  how  to  conduct  our  national 
and  municipal  and  local  affairs.  In  this  their  consolidation 
with  the  co-operators  will  greatly  help.  If,  too,  when  the 
workers  commanded  a  majority  of  the  intelligent  votes  of  the 
whole  population,  and  had  control  over  the  political  machinery, 
the  minority  attempted  to  maintain  their  outworn  domination 
by  force,  then  their  chance  of  holding  on  to  an  untenable 
position  would  be  small  indeed. 

In  short,  direct  action,  though  it  may  be  useful  in  argument 
as  a  possibility,  leads  to  anarchy  when  resorted  to  in  actual  fact, 
and  unnecessarily  risks  defeat. 

Political  action  is  a  continuous  education  and  traming  for 
administration  of  affairs. 


340  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Both  call  for  the  best  possible  organisation  of  the  workers, 
as  a  class  consciously  striving  for  its  own  emancipation  from 
economic,  social  and  individual  servitude. 

There  can  be  no  clearer  evidence  of  the  enormous  advance 
made  in  the  opinions  of  the  workers  of  Great  Britain,  within  the 
last  five  years,  than  the  discussion  of  this  crucial  issue  at  the 
present  time  all  over  the  country.  The  great  Railway  Strike 
itself  (undertaken  for  a  rise  of  wages  for  the  lower-grade  workers) 
— whether  justified  by  the  behaviour  of  the  Government,  as  the 
railway  workers  thought,  or  unreasonable  as  a  sudden  attempt 
to  starve  the  whole  community  on  an  issue  for  which  it  had  no 
responsibility — showed,  as  the  public  opinion  of  the  majority  of 
the  wage-earners  themselves  proclaimed,  what  perfect  organisa- 
tion and  discipline  the  Trade  Union  had  attained.  Well  that 
it  ended  as  it  did.  A  few  weeks  later  the  voters  of  London 
captured  the  Borough  Councils  with  their  votes ;  and  are  find- 
ing, even  after  this  remarkable  and  peaceful  victory,  the  great 
difficulty  of  developing  a  satisfactory  municipal  administration 
under  present  circimistances. 

It  is  one  of  the  features  of  a  really  revolutionary  period,  such 
as  we  have  manifestly  entered  upon  in  all  advanced  civilised 
countries,  that  events  follow  one  another  so  fast  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  keep  pace  with  them.  Thus  in  Great  Britain,  where  up 
to  within  the  last  six  years  the  development  had  apparently 
been  slower  than  in  some  other  nations,  the  change  in  the 
Government  policy  itself  has  been  more  rapid  than  elsewhere. 
Administrative  action  is  trying  to  catch  up  economic  growth  and 
labour  conceptions.  Even  in  peace,  for  example,  purchase  and 
control  of  food  and  its  distribution,  national  and  international, 
has  remained  largely  under  ministerial  management.  The 
League  of  Nations,  inchoate  and  nebulous  as  it  was  and  is,  set 
to  work  at  once  to  introduce  an  international  code  of  restrictions 
upon  the  exploitation  of  labour  by  the  capitalist  class,  which, 
not  long  ago,  would  have  been  universally  denounced  by  the 
possessing  minority  all  over  the  world  as  subversive  Socialism. 
Yet  scarcely  a  voice  has  been  raised  in  favour  of  the  old 
individualist  competitive  laissez-faire  policy.  This  is  very 
significant. 

In  Great  Britain  itself,  notwithstanding  a  temporary  reaction, 


A  CO-OPERATIVE  COMMONWEALTH     341 

the  general  forward  movement  towards  Collectivism  and  Social- 
ism has  fomid  expression  in  official  circles  to  such  a  degree  that 
further  developments  in  this  direction  cannot  be  greatly  de- 
layed. Nationalisation  of  mines  recommended  by  a  special 
Government  Commission ;  nationalisation  of  railways  pubhcly 
proclaimed  as  inevitable  by  a  Cabinet  Minister ;  nationalisation 
of  milk  production  and  distribution  virtually  accepted  by  official 
committee  after  committee;  national  effort  to  provide  houses 
for  the  people  sanctioned  by  the  House  of  Conunons ;  national- 
isation of  pubUc  health  authority  and  organisation — all  these 
proposals,  though  set  back,  evaded,  or  openly  repudiated  by  a 
capitalist  Government,  amount  to  the  recognition,  over  a  very 
wide  area,  that  the  problems  of  the  present  and  the  immediate 
future  cannot  be  solved  save  upon  national — that  is  to  say, 
Collectivist  and  Socialist — Unes.  The  fetishism  of  money  and 
the  worship  of  individualism  are  dying  down  inevitably,  even 
among  the  political  agents  of  the  rich.  That  in  itself  is  a 
material  and  mental  evolution. 

Nor  will  it  be  possible  to  evade  the  consequences  of  this  great 
change.  The  pressure  from  below  cannot  be  withstood  per- 
manently, either  by  chicane,  or  by  force.  To  guess  precisely 
what  form  the  transformation  will  take  is  beyond  the  scope  of 
the  most  far-seeing  intelligence.  But  the  fact  that  all  the 
organised  workers  of  Great  Britain  are  day  by  day  coming 
closer  together,  with  the  massed  Trade  Unions  and  Co-operators 
in  active  concert  for  social  and  political  ends,  proves  con- 
clusively, to  all  who  are  not  bUnded  by  hatred,  or  bemused  by 
greed,  that  here,  that  which  but  yesterday  was  denounced  as 
Utopian  is  now  the  only  practical  polity  for  the  nation ;  unless 
the  possessing  minority,  seized  with  madness,  should  decide  to 
force  on  a  civil  war.  Nothing  is  a  more  hopeful  sign  that  this 
misfortune  may  be  averted  than  the  general  admission  that 
a  Labour  Administration,  pledged  to  nationalisation  and 
socialisation,  is  virtually  a  certainty  in  the  not  remote  future.  • 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

"  THE  INTERNATIONAL  " 

The  idea  of  the  agreement  of  the  chief  European  Governments 
for  permanent  peace  was  more  than  once  seriously  considered 
by  the  rulers  of  the  Continent,  but,  as  I  shall  presently  relate,  it 
never  took  form  in  any  workable  shape.  Gradually  the  con- 
ception was  replaced  among  enthusiastic  idealists  by  the  notion 
of  a  similar  convention  between  the  various  peoples  themselves. 
The  famous  Quaker  Socialist,  John  Bellers,  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  favoured  this  view.  Anacharsis  Clootz — 
who  has  been  accused  recently  of  having  been  a  German  agent ! — 
with  others  cherished  a  similar  ideal  of  democratic  international 
fraternity  during  the  French  Revolution.  It  became,  in  fact, 
later,  a  portion  of  the  growing  Socialist  programme  in  France, 
taking  a  more  definite  shape  as  the  antagonism  of  the  workers 
of  all  nations  to  the  growth  of  capitalism  became  more  obvious. 
Robert  Owen,  the  great  English  Socialist,  advocated,  and  tried 
to  establish,  an  International  between  the  peoples  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century.  St  Simon  vaguely  shadowed 
forth  such  a  desirable  combination.  Fourier  did  the  same. 
The  EngUsh  Chartists  likewise,  in  their  rising  period  from  1831 
to  1848,  believed  that  the  working  classes  needed  some  kind  of 
international  combination  to  enable  them  to  exercise  their  power, 
and  held  this  belief  more  definitely  than  has  been  generally 
understood.  By  1848,  the  view  that  the  interests  of  the  workers 
in  the  various  nations  were  not  at  variance,  but,  in  general 
terms,  identical,  was  spreading  among  revolutionists  throughout 
Europe. 

Yet  no  steps  had  been  taken  to  concentrate  this  mental  con- 
ception upon  any  scheme  of  definite  action,  to  bring  about  the 
enactment  of  immediate  practical  palliatives  of  existing  condi- 
tions, or  to  work  in  the  direction  of  a  general  social  upheaval. 
However,  from  the  acceptance  of  the  principle  that  the  wage- 
earners  of  different  race,  language  and  nationality  had  no 

342 


"THE  INTERNATIONAL"  343 

adequate  ground  for  fighting  one  another,  there  naturally  arose 
the  development  of  proposals  for  common  strife  against  a 
common  enemy.  That  common  enemy  was  the  capitalist  class 
in  every  country,  whose  property  and  power  the  Socialists,  as 
the  advance  guard  of  the  working-class  movement  all  over  the 
ciWlised  world,  should  endeavour,  first  to  cripple,  and  then  to 
acquire  and  transform.  This  called  for  universal  education  and 
organisation  and  discipline,  so  that  a  rising  against  the  forces 
of  economic  domination,  by  the  intelligent,  class-conscious  and 
capable  but  propertyless  proletariat,  might  take  place  in  all 
the  capitals  of  Europe  at  once.  Such  was  the  programme  of 
the  extreme  revolutionary  party. 

But  the  majority,  even  of  internationalists,  were  much  more 
moderate,  and  looked  to  an  "  International,"  with  high  moral 
ideals  for  both  capitalists  and  labourers,  as  the  utmost  that 
could  be  achieved.  The  desire  for  higher  wages  held  the  Trade 
Unionists  in  its  grip,  as  it  has  done  ever  since.  Arrangements 
between  the  organised  trades  of  the  different  coimtries,  to  obtain 
increased  wages,  to  secure  better  protection  for  the  limbs  and 
lives  of  the  workers,  to  press  the  demand  for  shorter  hours — 
that  was  as  far  as  they  would  go.  To  talk  of  social  revolution 
was,  thought  the  majority  of  workers  in  town  and  country,  on 
the  Continent  as  well  as  in  Great  Britain,  not  only  untimely, 
but  absurd.  It  was  natural  that  high-minded  fanatics  should 
overrate  their  o^vn  influence,  and  enlarge  to  their  followers  upon 
the  near  approach  of  the  golden  age,  of  the  new  birth  of  a 
regenerated  society,  whose  appearance  should  be  helped  by 
force  as  the  midwife  of  progress.  Had  they  spoken  in  less 
hopeful  strain  they  would  probably  have  made  no  progress  at 
all  at  that  time.  In  Great  Britain,  where  no  restriction  upon 
the  rights  of  public  meeting  and  international  combination  then 
existed,  there  was  really  no  revolutionary  movement  at  all. 

The  International  of  1864,  therefore,  was  founded  chiefly  by 
English  Trade  Unionists,  with  the  aid  of  Mazzini  and  others. 
But  it  soon  came  under  the  influence  of  Marx  and  Engels,  whose 
great  ability  was  marred  for  practical  affairs  by  a  spirit  of  per- 
sonal dictation.  Moreover,  the  doctrines  of  the  two  German 
leaders,  apart  from  their  method  of  enforcing  them,  as  laid  down 
in  the  famous  Communist  Manifesto,  were  too  advanced  for 
English  working-class  opinion  at  that  date,  while  their  Prussian 


344  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

methods  exasperated  the  French.  Serious  differences,  con- 
sequently, soon  arose ;  the  Congress  held  in  1868  was  of  little 
account,  and  this  first  Socialist  International  was  never  of  much 
importance. 

Yet  the  untimely  Commune  of  Paris  and  its  sad  ending  was 
attributed  largely  to  the  guidance  of  members  of  the  Intema- 
national  body.  That  fact  certainly  hampered  its  usefulness  to 
the  Socialist  movement ;  although  Marx  himself  at  first  pointed 
out  the  hopelessness  of  the  rising,  which  he  afterwards  excused 
and  defended.  But,  apart  from  this,  there  were  serious  differ- 
ences in  the  International  itself — differences  of  principle  which 
could  not  be  composed.  Marx  represented  the  revolution  of 
organisation  and  order,  in  which  discipline  of  all  forces  was  re- 
garded as  essential  to  success,  especially  if  the  attempt  at  inter- 
national revolution  by  force  were  to  be  made.  Historic  and 
economic  development  were  the  main  agents  in  the  great  struggle 
which  must  eventually  arise :  men  could  only  understand  and 
take  advantage  of  the  opportunities  afforded  them  by  the  in- 
evitable growth  of  economic  forces. 

Bakunin,  Marx's  chief  opponent,  belonged  to  quite  a  different 
school,  as  well  as  to  a  widely  different  race  and  training,  from 
the  German  Jew  economist.  He  was  a  Russian  Communist- 
Anarchist,  who  believed  firmly  in  the  beneficent  effect  of  terror- 
ism, was  convinced  that  the  Commune  and  the  Communism  of 
small  bodies  of  men  was  the  real  solution  of  the  wage-slave 
problem ;  above  all,  he  held  that  the  individual  had  the  right 
of  revolt  against  the  system  which  oppressed  him,  and  was 
justified  in  using,  on  his  own  account,  any  weapon  against  the 
bourgeoisie.  Two  such  men,  with  their  respective  friends  and 
comrades,  could  never  have  worked  long  together  in  the  same 
organisation.     Their  principles  were  wholly  incompatible. 

The  antagonism  came  to  a  head  at  the  Congress  held  at  The 
Hague  in  1872.  No  arrangement  for  peaceable  co-operation 
could  be  made.  By  a  rather  absurd  subterfuge  Marx,  when  the 
whole  thing  was  obviously  falling  to  pieces,  for  the  time  being 
removed  its  "  centre  "  from  The  Hague  to  the  United  States. 
The  struggle  between  Bakunin  and  Marx  gave  the  whole  busi- 
ness a  dramatic  personal  turn  ;  but  the  truth  is  that  the  Inter- 
national could  not  then  have  continued,  even  if  the  leaders  of  the 
two  sections  had  come  to  terms.     There  was  general  discourage- 


"THE  INTERNATIONAL"  345 

ment  throughout  the  Socialist  parties  of  Europe.  Moreover, 
there  was  a  scission  of  opinions  alike  at  the  centre  and  among 
the  different  national  sections.  Marxism,  as  it  was  called,  was 
not  accepted  even  as  a  theory  by  the  large  minority  of  Socialists. 

A  scientific  exposition,  based  upon  materialist  evolution, 
and  an  elaborate  economic  analysis  of  the  existing  social 
system,  called  for  an  amount  of  education,  and  a  capacity  for 
patient  preparation  and  organisation,  which  the  class  to  which 
it  was  specially  addressed  did  not  then  possess.  Even  in 
Germany  itself  the  Socialist  Party  was  divided  between  the 
Marxist  or  International  Party  and  the  Lassalle  or  National 
Party.  Of  these  two  the  latter  was  the  more  numerous,  and 
appealed  at  the  time  more  directly  to  the  popular  intelligence. 
In  fact  Lassalle's  own  propaganda  had  been  much  more  easy  of 
comprehension,  and  his  pamphlets  were  simpler  than  those  of 
the  rival  school.  There  was  no  fundamental  difference  as  to  the 
meaning  and  development  of  modem  capital,  or  the  necessity  for 
the  complete  control  of  the  means  of  making  wealth  by  the  State. 
But  the  followers  of  Lassalle  held  views  upon  the  possibility  of 
beneficent  State  Socialism,  and  the  likelihood  of  the  people 
gaining  partial  control  by  State  agency,  even  of  the  Bismarckian 
type — views  which  the  Marxists  did  not  share.  In  addition, 
the  Lassalle  party,  which  conceived  that  Germany  alone  could 
play  a  leading  part  in  the  future  of  the  SociaUst  movement, 
approached  more  nearly  to  the  attitude  of  the  Majority  Social 
Democrats  during  the  war  than  to  the  ideas  publicly  avowed 
by  Marx  and  the  leaders  of  his  coterie. 

So  serious  was  the  difference  between  them  that  it  is  alleged, 
when  a  rising  was  contemplated  in  Berlin  during  the  siege  of  Paris, 
the  two  parties  could  not  agree  to  combine;  and  Schweitzer, 
the  leader  of  the  Lassalle  party,  was  reported  to  have  arranged 
certain  social  reforms  with  Prince  Bismarck.  Whether  or  not 
this  really  occurred,  it  is  clear  that  no  action  on  the  part  of  the 
German  Social  Democrats  interfered  with  the  immolation  of 
France.  The  two  parties  were  not  combined  until  the  Congress 
of  Erfurt  in  1878,  and  then  quite  contrary  to  the  desire  of  Marx 
and  Engels,  whose  advice  on  this  matter  was  overruled  by 
Wilhelm  Liebknecht  and  August  Bebel,  on  behalf  of  the  Marx 
party.  From  that  time  onwards  in  Germany  the  Social- 
Democratic  Party  formed  one  consolidated  whole. 


346  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

In  France  the  difference  lay  not  between  Nationalists  and 
Internationalists,  but  between  Possibilists,  who  were  willing  to 
accept  palliatives  of  the  capitalist  system  as  their  immediate 
programme,  and  the  Marxist  group,  whom  their  opponents 
dubbed  Impossibilists,  because,  according  to  them,  the  Marxists 
wished  to  transform  society  at  one  blow.  The  Anarchists,  also, 
who  were  advocates  of  direct  action  and  physical  force,  had  con- 
siderable influence  among  the  French  Trade  Unions.  By  1889 
the  Possibilists  were  much  the  most  influential  party  in  Paris, 
where  they  succeeded  in  carrying  some  important  palliative 
measures  on  the  Paris  Municipal  Council.  In  the  great  in- 
dustrial cities  the  Marxists  were  the  stronger,  and  gradually 
gained  control  in  the  municipal  bodies.  But  the  relations  be- 
tween the  two  sections  were  certainly  not  friendly. 

Similar  dissensions  existed  in  other  countries;  but  Belgium 
was  remarkable  for  the  admirable  manner  in  which  the  Labour 
Party,  a  thorough-going  Socialist  Party,  worked  and  coalesced 
with  the  co-operative  organisations.  This  was  a  master-stroke. 
It  gave  the  whole  movement  a  sound  financial  basis  that  could 
not  have  been  obtained  in  any  other  way.  In  times  of  strikes 
the  strikers  were  most  effectively  helped  by  the  Co-operatives 
with  supplies  of  bread,  etc.,  the  daily  party  newspaper  was 
maintained  on  lines  which  enabled  it  to  be  sold  at  half  a  farthing, 
and  all  the  ordinary  advantages  of  Co-operation  were  also  gained. 
The  fine  "  Maisons  du  Peuple  "  at  Brussels,  Ghent  and  else- 
where were  the  admiration  of  the  entire  International  Socialist 
movement.  This  conjoint  action  of  Socialists  and  Co-operators 
gave  a  good  example  to  Socialist  and  Labour  parties  in  other 
countries. 

From  1872  onwards  International  Socialism  slowly  made  way, 
though  the  International  itself  had  broken  up.  Attempts  were 
then  made  to  reorganise  it.  These  attempts  were  due  to  the 
efforts,  not  of  the  German  Marxists  and  Impossibilists,  but  of 
French  and  English  Socialists,  who,  while  they  recognised  the 
great  theoretical  ability  of  Marx  and  Engels,  were  more  opposed 
than  ever  to  their  distinct  pro-German  attitude,  many 
French  Socialists  being  of  opinion  that  these  two  men  acted  as 
Internationalists  mainly  in  the  national  interests  of  Germany. 
This  conviction  arose  from  the  bitter  and  most  imprudent 
attacks  made  upon  France  by  Marx  and  Engels  during  the 


"  THE  INTERNATIONAL  "  347 

FVanco-German  War,  as  well  as  from  their  dictatorial  behaviour 
to\varcIs  active  French  Socialists  before  and  after  that  historic 
struggle.  It  is  clear  that  the  German  leaders  had  little  share 
in  the  endeavours  made,  in  1882  and  1883,  and  later,  to  re- 
establish a  second  International,  in  which  Germans  should  not 
have  complete  control.  EngUsh  Trade  Unionists  and  French 
Possibilists  were  the  main  agents  in  the  work  of  reorganisation. 
This  has  been  conclusively  shown  by  Adolphe  Smith  in  his  Pan- 
German  Internationale,  which,  though  too  harsh  in  its  judgment 
of  the  motives  and  methods  of  the  German  philosophers  in 
practical  affairs,  is  entirely  to  be  relied  upon  about  matters  of 
fact.  Such  international  gatherings  as  were  held  afterwards 
were  consequently  free  from  German  domination,  much  to  the 
exasperation  of  Friedrich  Engels,  who,  having  been  Marx's  evil 
genius  during  his  life,  became  the  sole  authoritative  exponent 
of  his  theories  after  his  death.  That  made  matters  worse. 
Acrid  intolerance  developed  into  malignant  bigotry. 

Thus  nothing  very  important  was  done  in  the  way  of  recon- 
struction until  the  year  1889,  the  centenary  of  the  taking  of 
the  Bastille,  and  the  commencement  of  the  French  Revolution. 
This  great  celebration,  and  the  International  Exhibition  simid- 
taneously  held  in  Paris,  ought  certainly  to  have  induced  all 
Socialists  to  sink  their  antagonisms  in  one  sober  brotherly 
Congress.  But  the  Marxists,  as  a  section,  were  even  more  in- 
tolerant than  usual.  They  would  have  neither  part  nor  lot 
with  the  Possibilists  and  their  friends,  who  then  were  the  domi- 
nant SociaUst  Party  in  Paris,  and  held  an  important  position 
on  the  Municipal  Council.  The  practical  success  achieved  by 
its  members  appeared,  of  itself,  to  disqualify  the  Possibilists  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Pharisees  of  theoretical  Socialism,  who  issued 
anathematical  encyclicals  inspired  by  Friedrich  Engels.  So  two 
mutually  recriminating  Congresses  were  held  in  separate  halls 
by  the  Possibilists  and  Impossibilists  respectively,  the  anarchists 
being  impartially  present  at  both.  This  publication  of  the 
incapacity  of  Socialist  fraternities  to  fraternise  was  greeted 
with  storms  of  derision  by  the  unregenerate  world.  The 
Christians  were  particularly  jubilant,  until  they  were  reminded 
that  their  o^vn  propagandists  were  still  more  envenomed  against 
one  another,  in  the  early  days  of  their  history. 

Though  a  Marxist  in  theory  myself,  I  was  one  of  those  who 


348  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

strongly  resented  the  attempt  to  impose  upon  the  members  of  a 
great  international  movement  the  dictates  of  a  family  clique. 
I  therefore  took  an  active  part  in  the  PossibOist  Congress. 
Looking  back  upon  that  unfortunate  incident,  which  advertised 
Socialist  dissensions  quite  unnecessarily,  it  is  clear  to  me  that 
certain  German  prejudices  had  a  dominating  influence  in  the 
Marxist  camp.  The  French  Socialists  of  the  Possibilist  school 
were  anxious,  not  to  say  eager,  to  welcome  Socialists  of  all 
opinions  to  the  French  capital  on  this  memorable  centenary : 
Anti-nationalism,  not  Internationalism,  was  already  proclaimed 
from  the  other  side.  But  the  absurdity  of  people  who  were 
engaged  upon  the  task  of  remodelling  the  world  being  unable 
to  agree  among  themselves  struck  the  public  imagination. 

Happily,  by  the  year  1900,  these  differences  were  sufficiently 
composed  to  enable  a  full  Congress  of  all  International  Socialists 
to  meet  again  in  Paris,  where  also  the  finest  International 
Exhibition  of  all  countries  ever  seen  was  held.  The  Congress  of 
London  in  1896,  in  which  the  British  Trade  Unionists  and  Social- 
ists cordially  co-operated,  had  led  up  to  this  fortunate  cessation 
of  fraternal  animosity ;  and  the  exclusion  of  the  Anarchists,  who 
were  bitterly  opposed  to  all  collective  Socialist  action  in  any 
form,  as  well  as  to  political  organisation  in  any  shape,  removed 
an  element  of  infuriate  discord  from  the  Congress.  This  time 
even  those  most  hostile  to  all  Socialist  ideas  were  compelled  to 
admit  that  the  Congress  was  conducted  with  dignity  and  ability, 
and  that  the  whole  of  the  debates  produced  the  impression  that 
questions  of  importance  to  mankind  were  being  seriously  dis- 
cussed. It  was  recognised  likewise  that  these  Socialists,  who 
were  at  once  contenmed  and  feared  by  the  bourgeoisie,  had 
among  them  orators,  writers  and  philosophers  in  all  languages 
who  could  more  than  hold  their  own  with  the  representatives  of 
the  dominant  class  in  any  country. 

The  year  1900,  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  may, 
therefore,  be  regarded  as  the  date  when  Socialism  or  Social 
Democracy  really  took  its  place  as  the  coming  material  religion 
of  the  universal  brotherhood,  first,  of  the  workers  of  all  nations, 
and  then  of  world-wide  humanity,  in  its  various  stages  of  class 
struggle  and  national  and  social  development.  Moreover,  this 
Congress  of  1900  will  always  be  remembered  because  the  new 
International  was  then  founded  and  organised.     As  one  who 


"  THE  INTERNATIONAL  "  349 

took  an  active  part  in  this  fresh  attempt  to  consolidate  and 
extend  the  influence  of  Socialist  co-operation  and  common  inter- 
national policy,  who  also  proposed  that  the  International  Social- 
ist Bureau,  in  which  all  national  Socialist  parties  might  be 
represented,  should  have  its  seat  at  Brussels,  I  can  speak  from 
personal  experience  of  the  elation  and  confidence  which  inspired 
the  whole  of  the  assembled  Social  Democrats  and  Socialist 
delegates  of  all  shades  of  opinion,  when  this  important  step  was 
taken,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress  on  the  subject  were 
unanimously  ratified.  Paris,  the  city  which  has  so  often  in- 
spired humanity  with  the  highest  ideals  for  the  emancipation 
of  man,  was  fittingly  chosen  as  the  centre  at  which  this  new 
advance  should  begin.  Belgium,  so  sadly  made  the  cockpit  of 
Europe  in  the  dreadful  international  warfare  of  the  past,  would 
henceforth  be  the  peaceful  arena  for  the  beneficial  discussion  of 
fruitful  ideas  for  the  future.  So  we  all  thought  and  felt  in 
August,  1900. 

The  choice  of  Brussels  for  the  centre  of  the  Bureau  was 
thoroughly  justified.  Having  served  as  a  member  of  the  Bureau 
for  the  first  ten  years  of  its  existence,  as  delegate  for  Great 
Britain,  I  can  testify  to  the  admirable  work  done  by  the  Secre- 
tariat, first  Servy  and  then  Huysmans,  from  1900  to  1914,  while 
Vandervelde  was  an  excellent  chairman.  At  the  meetings  of 
the  Bureau  itself  the  power  of  the  Germans,  with  their  friends 
from  Austria,  Holland  and  Scandinavia,  was  very  great, 
not  to  say  supreme;  and  Belgium  also  fell  under  the  same 
influence.  This  was  natural.  The  German  Social-Democratic 
Party  was  at  that  time  by  far  the  most  numerous,  the  best 
organised,  the  most  highly  educated  and  the  most  completely 
equipped  with  funds,  newspapers  and  Socialist  literature  of  any 
country  in  Europe.  Its  leaders  were  men  who,  without  abandon- 
ing their  nationality,  were  imbued  with  international  concep- 
tions, and  had  displayed  admirable,  statesmanlike  qualities 
under  the  exceedingly  difficult  conditions  created  for  the  party 
by  Bismarck's  anti-Socialist  laws.  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  more 
particularly,  by  their  fine  protest  against  the  war  with  France 
in  1870,  and  their  denunciation  of  the  annexation  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  in  1871,  had  acted  up  to  their  international  Socialist 
principles,  at  the  cost  of  great  sacrifices  and  even  imprisonment. 
Liebknecht  had  also  undergone  other  terms  of  imprisonment  on 


350  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

account  of  his  revolutionary  opinions.  All  this  justified  the 
high  regard,  I  had  almost  said  deference,  paid  to  the  Germans 
in  the  Bureau  and  at  the  Congresses.  If,  at  times,  they  dis- 
played an  inclination  to  exaggerate  this  independent  deference 
into  a  claim  to  subservience  on  the  part  of  Social  Democrats  of 
other  nationalities,  that  was  only  human.  But  it  was  none  the 
less  unfortunate,  even  while  the  old  group  of  Social  Democrats 
were  in  control  of  the  German  party.  For  it  put  that  party  in 
a  position  to  decide,  with  the  help  of  the  nationalities  that 
invariably  followed  their  lead,  when  and  where  International 
Congresses  should  be  held,  and  even  what  matters  should  or 
should  not  be  fully  discussed  at  the  general  meetings  of  the 
Bureau.  There  was  consequently  some  ground  for  saying  that 
German  ideas  held  sway.  The  case,  in  fact,  might  be  put  more 
strongly ;  but  as,  on  the  whole,  the  influence  thus  obtained  was 
not  actually  injurious  to  the  cause  of  Social  Democracy  in 
general,  and  all  believed  that  German  Social  Democrats  would 
every  year  gain  more  and  more  power  to  restrain  the  forces  of 
militarism  in  Germany  itself,  there  was  no  organised  opposition 
to  their  leadership.  Yet  protests  were  now  and  then  made 
against  the  almost  exclusive  attention  given  on  the  Bureau  to 
minor  political  issues  in  Europe,  to  the  detriment  of  questions 
of  world-wide  importance. 

All  through  the  period  of  my  service  on  the  Bureau  the 
German  Social-Democratic  delegates,  and  their  supporters  of 
other  nationalities,  assumed  that  there  could  be  no  probability 
whatever  of  an  unprovoked  attack  by  Germany  upon  her  neigh- 
bours; though  German  preparations  for  war  by  land  and  by 
sea  were  going  forward  upon  an  unprecedented  scale,  and  the 
accumulation  of  vast  quantities  of  military  stores  at  Cologne 
had  special  significance  in  regard  to  Belgium,  particularly  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  great  number  of  military  sidings  on 
the  German  side  of  the  frontier,  which  could  be  of  no  use  except 
for  military  purposes.  I  believe  now  that  the  Social-Democratic 
leaders  held  the  same  opinion  as  I  did  concerning  the  danger  of 
these  military  preparations ;  but — I  speak  of  the  older  school — 
they  had  convinced  themselves  that  the  Kaiser  was  opposed, 
in  spite  of  these  facts,  to  any  attack,  and  that  Social  Democracy 
was  getting  strong  enough  to  prevent  a  German  war  of  aggres- 
sion.    Should  Germany  be  herself  attacked,  however,  then  all 


"THE  INTERNATIONAL"  351 

the  German  leaders,  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  included,  said  openly 
and  plainly  there  would  be  no  pacifism  in  the  ranks  of  the  Social 
Deniocrac}^  They  would  march  with  the  rest  in  defence  of  the 
Fatherland.  Bebel  even  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that,  although 
he  welcomed  the  existence  of  a  powerful  British  navy  as  the 
only  effective  counterpoise  to  Junkerdom  in  Europe,  a  policy 
directed  against  Germany  could  reckon  upon  no  support  from 
the  Social  Democracy.  It  is  interesting,  in  this  connection,  to 
recall  that  at  one  Socialist  Congress,  in  the  course  of  a  public 
discussion,  Bebel  reminded  the  great  French  Socialist  and  orator, 
Jaures,  that  France  owed  her  Republic  to  the  overthrow  of  the 
French  Empire  by  Germany.  I  may  add  here  that  Wilhehn 
Liebknecht  told  me,  not  very  long  before  his  lamented  death, 
that  he  viewed  with  anxiety  the  growth  of  pan-Germanism 
among  the  younger  Social  Democrats  and  Trade  Unionists,  but 
that  he  believed  the  principles  of  Social  Democracy  would 
nevertheless  triumph. 

The  Congress  of  Amsterdam  in  1900  was  remarkable,  not  only 
for  its  good  management  and  the  general  brotherly  feeling  and 
enthusiasm  which  prevailed,  but  also  for  the  fact  that  the  great 
continent  of  Asia  was  represented.  Mr  Dadabhai  Naoroji  had 
a  most  sympathetic  hearing  from  the  Congress  when  he  ex- 
pounded the  ^vrongs  of  India  under  British  rule,  and  clahned 
that  all  nations  were  interested,  on  the  ground  of  their  conmion 
humanity,  in  securing  justice  for  the  hundreds  of  millions  of 
people  who  were  suffering  from  British  misgovernment  and  the 
ruinous  economic  drain  of  tribute.  More  dramatic  was  another 
striking  incident.  Russia  was  then  engaged  in  a  desperate  war 
with  Japan.  Both  countries  were  represented  by  duly  author- 
ised delegates  to  the  Congress.  Plechanoff,  the  famous  Russian 
Social  Democrat,  and  Katayama,  the  Socialist  delegate  from 
Japan,  both  declared  that  the  war  was  injurious  to  their  re- 
spective countries,  so  far  as  the  mass  of  Russians  and  the  majority 
of  Japanese  were  concerned.  Then  they  shook  hands,  amid 
great  cheering  from  all  the  assembled  delegates.  Plechanoff, 
who  had  sacrificed  all  he  could  sacrifice  for  the  overthrow  of 
Tsarism  in  Russia,  returned  to  Petrograd  after  the  revolution  of 
17th  March  1917,  and  was  hounded  to  his  death  by  Lenin  and 
Trotsky.  Katayama  vanished  from  Japan,  and  is  living  as  an 
exile  in  the  United  States. 


352  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

At  Stuttgart  the  best-organised  and  on  the  whole  most 
successful  Socialist  Congress  ever  held  was  arranged  by  the 
German  Party.  It  was  here  that  Ghistave  Herve,  who  has  since 
completely  changed  his  opinions,  indulged  in  a  furious  outburst 
of  irreconcilable  pacifism,  denying  to  any  nation  the  right  to 
defend  itself  against  attack  from  without.  This  did  not  meet 
with  acceptance  from  the  Germans ;  and  feeling  was  so  strong 
that  Herve  was  improperly  deprived  by  the  chairman  of  his 
right  to  reply  to  his  assailants.  Four  years  later,  at  Copenhagen, 
pacifism  was  in  the  ascendant.  Yet  it  was  already  quite  clear, 
to  all  who  knew  Germany  well  and  were  kept  tolerably  informed, 
that  the  Junkers  and  the  militarist  party  had  determined  upon 
war — which,  indeed,  was  very  narrowly  avoided  in  1911.  The 
Pacifists  shut  their  eyes  to  the  bitter  animosity  which  appeared 
at  the  Congress  itself  between  the  Slavs  and  the  Germans,  in 
spite  of  their  common  Socialism,  and  went  so  far  as  to  choose 
Vienna  as  the  place  for  the  next  Congress  in  1914.  Some  pre- 
dicted that,  if  such  a  Congress  should  be  held,  the  conflict 
between  the  two  races,  the  oppressed  and  the  oppressors, 
would  break  out  in  much  more  formidable  shape,  and  were,  of 
course,  derided. 

What  had  come  of  these  International  Congresses  and  the 
frequent  meetings  of  the  International  Socialist  Bureau  ?  In 
practice  nothing ;  in  general  good  understanding  and  mutual 
appreciation  between  the  various  nationalities  a  great  deal;  so  it 
was  generally  assumed.  Socialism  was  gaining  ground  in  every 
nation — ^most  of  all  in  Germany,  where,  before  1914,  no  fewer 
than  4,500,000  votes  were  cast  for  Social  Democracy,  electing 
upwards  of  100  members  to  the  Reichstag.  1,000,000  members 
were  paying  their  weekly  contributions  into  the  party  funds, 
and  90  daily  newspapers  were  spreading  Social-Democratic 
opinions  throughout  Germany.  The  Social  Democrats,  who 
never  disguised  their  revolutionary  programme,  were  obviously 
the  coming  political  party  in  the  Fatherland.  In  France, 
Austria,  Italy  and,  in  fact,  all  over  Europe,  Socialism  was 
steadily  making  way,  and  deputies  were  being  elected  on  a 
definite  Socialist  platform,  while  in  several  nations  Socialists 
were  taking  their  seats  in  the  Cabinet  as  ministers.  Never  be- 
fore in  history  has  any  revolutionary  party  made  way  so  rapidly, 
and  so  peacefully,  as  the  Socialist  Party  did  on  the  continent  of 


"  THE  INTERNATIONAL  *'  353 

Europe  from  1900  to  1914.  Everywhere  the  same  ideas  were 
propagated ;  everywhere,  according  to  the  stage  of  economic 
development  reached,  similar  practical  measures  were  advocated. 
Even  in  Great  Britain,  where  economic  development  was  most 
advanced  and  social  and  political  education  was  least  re- 
latively effective,  the  Labour  Party  was  being  forced,  almost 
against  its  will,  to  adopt  definite  resolutions  in  favour  of  the 
nationahsation  and  socialisation  of  the  great  productive  and 
distributive  agencies,  including  the  land.  The  fact  that  in 
Great  Britain  all  the  workers  are  proletarians,  the  agricultural 
labourers  being  as  destitute  of  property  in  any  shape  as  the  wage- 
earners  of  the  cities  and  towns,  rendered  it  certain  that,  in  any 
period  of  shock  and  perturbation,  the  poUtical  Labour  Party 
and  the  Trade  Unions  would  make  common  cause  on  a  series  of 
wide  Collectivist  and  Socialist  proposals,  leading,  if  carried, 
to  the  estabhshment  of  a  Co-operative  Commonwealth. 

Then  came  the  crash  of  the  Great  War.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  the  continued  success  of  SociaUsm  in  Germany  had  a  share 
in  hastening  on  (Germany's  commencement  of  hostilities.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  she  was  responsible  for  the 
failure  of  all  efforts  to  maintain  peace.  It  was  a  definite  and 
clearly  thought-out  plan  of  the  Central  Powers — ^Austria- 
Hungary  holding  quite  a  secondary  place — ^to  impose  upon 
Europe  and  the  world  the  leadership  of  autocratic,  aristocratic, 
mihtarist  and  State-organised  Germany.  Of  the  effect  pro- 
duced upon  Great  Britain,  in  the  direction  of  bureaucratic 
control,  by  the  administration  of  the  resources  of  the  island  and 
the  Empire  I  have  written  above.  Similar  results  were  to  be 
observed  in  every  country  which  came  into  the  war,  including 
the  United  States. 

But  the  action  of  the  majority  of  the  German  Social  Demo- 
crats, at  the  beginning  and  all  through  the  duration  of  the  war, 
more  than  justified  the  apprehensions  which  Wilhelm  Lieb- 
knecht  had  expressed.  They  proved  false  to  all  the  principles 
they  had  so  vigorously  urged  Socialists  to  adopt,  and  betrayed 
the  entire  International  SociaUst  movement  so  completely  that 
it  will  be  no  easy  matter  for  sane  Socialists  of  other  nationalities 
ever  to  trust  them  again.  The  Germans,  who  had  been  re- 
garded as  the  leaders  of  SociaUsm,  and  had,  in  effect,  obtained 
control  of  the  International  Socialist  Congresses,  did  not  even 


354  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

adopt  a  neutral  attitude  in  the  Reichstag,  or  in  their  own  and 
other  countries.  After  pledging  themselves  by  their  most 
prominent  leaders  in  Brussels  (when  speaking  on  the  same  plat- 
form as  Jaur^s  within  a  few  days  of  the  declaration  of  war),  and 
in  Paris,  to  vote  against  the  war  credits,  on  their  return  to  Berlin 
they  rushed  forward,  full  of  chauvinist  enthusiasm,  to  support 
to  the  utmost  of  their  power  one  of  the  most  infamous  wars  of 
Imperialist  aggression  ever  waged.  Their  nominally  pacifist 
Social-Democratic  organisation,  whose  strength  and  discipline 
Socialists  of  other  nationalities  had  always  admired  and  praised, 
was  fully  used  to  help  the  Kaiser  and  his  Junkers  in  their 
atrocities  in  Belgium  and  France.  Worse  than  this,  after 
neutral  Belgium,  guaranteed  security  by  Germany,  had  been 
outraged  in  the  unspeakable  fashion  which  all  the  world  knows, 
the  German  Social-Democratic  Party  sent  an  official  mission  to 
the  Belgian  SociaUsts,  headed  by  Noske,  in  order  to  persuade 
their  brethren  to  put  themselves  entirely  under  German  rule. 
Nothing  more  treacherous  or  disgraceful  than  all  this  can  be 
imagined.  It  struck  a  deadly  blow  at  International  Socialism, 
and  made  the  efforts  of  peace  advocates  not  only  futile,  but 
exasperating.  Here  is  the  great  drawback  to  International 
combinations.  It  is  always  possible,  as  in  this  case,  for  a 
single  strong  national  group  to  betray  all  the  rest. 

The  mischief  done  by  the  Germans  to  the  general  Socialist 
cause  was  increased  by  those  Socialists  in  the  belligerent  and 
neutral  countries,  who,  in  their  ecstasy  of  pacifism,  wrought 
themselves  up  to  the  conviction  that  capitalism,  dominated  by 
the  Junkers,  would  be  preferable  to  capitalism,  standing  on  its 
own  demerits.  They  thus  became  virtually  pro- Junkers  in  the 
struggle,  and  were  the  cause  of  harmful  scissions  in  every  Social- 
ist camp.  So  peaceful  were  they  that  useless  devastations, 
rape,  murder  and  wholesale  pillage  were  carefully  minimised 
and  excused,  if  only  these  were  committed  by  their  friends  the 
enemy.  When  to  this  was  superadded  a  fervent  desire  to  em- 
brace the  hostile  Social  Democrats  at  Stockholm,  in  the  midst 
of  the  war,  it  was  easy  to  detect  whither  all  this  craven  senti- 
mentality must  lead.  The  result  of  the  General  Elections  in 
France  and  Great  Britain,  while  the  impression  made  by  German 
crimes  was  still  fresh  in  the  public  mind,  showed  only  too  clearly 
how  harmful  to  democratic  and  Socialist  progress  these  tactics 


"  THE  INTERNATIONAL  "  355 

had  been.  Downright  reaction  was  given  a  new  lease  of  Pariia- 
mentary  Ufe ;  and  direct  action,  as  advocated  by  Syndicalists 
and  Anarchists,  received  a  sharp  impulse,  to  the  detriment  of 
political  methods  of  any  kind. 

Meantime,  the  world  had  seen  in  Russia  the  practical  effect  of 
the  endeavour  of  a  knot  of  educated  Socialists,  wholly  fanatical, 
cruel  and  unscrupulous,  to  force  a  form  of  social  transformation 
upon  a  great  country,  whether  the  people  were  ready  for  it  or 
not. 

Although,  as  I  shall  show  in  detail  in  my  next  chapter,  all  the 
high  principles  of  Socialist  fraternity  and  brotherly  good-will 
have  been  defiled,  in  the  most  horrible  manner,  by  a  set  of 
fanatics,  many  of  the  outside  public  have,  nevertheless,  taken 
for  granted  that  Bolshevism  is  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
organised  Social  Democracy.  Thus  a  damaging  prejudice  has 
been  created  in  the  minds  of  people,  who,  by  the  sheer  force 
of  events,  had  come  to  admit  that  some  form  of  SociaUsm  was 
inevitably  the  next  step  in  the  progress  of  humanity.  Such  an 
admission  was  already  weakening  the  forces  of  opposition,  and 
preparing  the  way  for  a  peaceful  understanding  between  the 
organised  working  classes,  more  and  more  influenced  every  day 
by  Sociahst  thought,  and  more  and  more  inclined  to  accept 
the  Socialist  programme.  Bolshevism  has  done  a  very  great 
deal  to  arrest  this  promising  development ;  while  in  regard  to 
large  portions  of  the  workers  themselves  its  influence  has  been 
deplorable.  The  very  same  section  of  the  International  Social- 
ist Party  in  each  country  which  went  pacifist,  anti-nationaUst 
and  pro-German  diuring  the  war,  which  declared  for  peace  at 
any  price,  even  at  the  price  of  Junker  domination  in  Western 
Europe,  has  embraced  what  its  members  believe  to  be  revolu- 
tionary Bolshevism.  This  at  the  time  when  the  Bolshevist 
leaders  themselves  perforce  are  abandoning  all  the  principles,  as 
well  as  very  nearly  the  whole  programme  they  began  with,  and 
have  ruthlessly  endeavoured  to  establish  a  servile  State  with 
capitaUsm  more  dominant  than  ever. 

This  section  of  Socialists  are  ready  to  accept  from  semi- 
barbarous  Russia,  which  has  no  political  history  and  is  only 
at  the  beginning  of  her  industrial  era,  a  scheme  of  social  and 
political  reorganisation  which  the  Bolshevists  do  not  believe  in 
themselves. 


356  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

In  spite  of  these  manifest  truths  the  new  International, 
utterly  regardless  of  the  best  traditions  of  its  predecessor, 
began  its  premature  career  by  applauding  the  work  of  the  Bol- 
shevists. The  only  difference  between  the  two  sections  at  the 
Socialist  Congress  of  Lausanne  was  as  to  the  extent  to  which 
the  gospel  of  Bolshevist  Moscow  should  be  welcomed  as  a 
genuine  Socialist  revelation.  That  the  whole  thing  was  a 
horrible  travesty  of  both  Democracy  and  Socialism  none  appar- 
ently dare  assert.  A  sort  of  mental  terrorism  pervaded  the 
assembled  delegates,  and  their  surrender  to  a  small  but  trucu- 
lent and  butcherly  minority  in  Russia  must  have  a  most 
baleful  effect  upon  International  Socialism  as  a  whole. 

Since  then  the  breaches  between  the  different  sections  of 
the  Internationalists  of  Socialism  remain  unhealed.  Furious 
manifestos  from  Moscow,  issued  on  behalf  of  the  "  Third 
International,"  having  its  headquarters  in  that  cily,  call  upon 
"Communists"  in  every  country  to  begin  the  reign  of  peace 
and  brotherhood  by  slaughtering  the  bourgeoisie  and  the 
"  moderate  "  Socialists  in  their  respective  nations.  This  at  a 
time  when  the  dictators  of  the  proletariat  in  Russia  itself 
are  surrendering  wholesale  to  bourgeois  capitalism  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  are  proposing  to  guarantee  payment  of  in- 
terest on  the  huge  external  Russian  debt  in  order  to  propitiate 
bankers  and  bondholders  in  London  and  Paris. 

At  the  "Second  International,"  held  at  Geneva  in  August, 
1920,  ill-organised  though  it  was,  more  restraint,  capacity  and 
common-sense  were  generally  displayed.  The  German  delegates 
admitted  the  responsibility  of  Germany  for  the  war,  and  de- 
clared against  the  pseudo-Communist  tyranny  of  Bolshevism. 
By  the  time  another  International  Congress  is  held,  as  suggested 
in  London,  some  arrangement  may  be  arrived  at  which  will  pre- 
vent serious  altercations.  Meantime  the  best  thing  Socialists 
and  Social  Democrats  can  do  is  to  sink  their  internal  animosities 
and  present  a  united  front  to  the  growing  forces  of  reaction 
abroad  and  at  home. 

The  hope  for  the  future  of  International  Socialism  lies  in  a 
community  of  peoples,  each  nationaUty  working  within  its  own 
borders  for  the  educated  and  orderly  realisation  of  its  co- 
operative ideals  by  political  action.  The  form  of  national  and 
international  Socialism  will  be  decided  through  common  agree- 


"THE  INTERNATIONAL"  357 

ment,  according  to  the  stage  of  economic  and  social  develop- 
ment at  which  the  bulk  of  the  population  in  each  country  has 
arrived.  A  resort  to  arms  can  only  be  justifiable  when  the 
minority  in  free  nations  refuses  to  obey  the  political  decisions 
of  the  majority.  To  support  a  grimly  ludicrous  "dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat,"  set  on  foot  by  a  handful  of  middle-class 
men,  and  kept  in  existence  by  the  terrorism  of  a  small  minority, 
is  directly  opposed  both  to  democracy  and  freedom. 

The  world  is  in  a  period  of  revolutionary  change.  Inter- 
national co-ordination  is  universally  discussed,  even  by  capital- 
ists. But  thorough  national  education,  coupled  with  economic 
liberty  for  the  workers  in  each  nation,  must  come  first.  Nothing 
could  be  more  harmful  to  real  progress  towards  the  realisation 
of  this  ideal  than  the  promulgation  to  the  world,  by  an  Inter- 
national Socialist  Congress,  that  there  is  a  short-cut  to  emancipa- 
tion through  the  dictatorship  of  an  intolerant  and  unscrupulous 
minority. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

The  growing  anxiety  of  the  whole  civilised  world  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  such  a  cataclysm  as  recently  threatened  mankind 
with  the  destruction,  or  mutilation,  of  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  males  of  the  white  race  found  its  immediate  embodiment  in 
the  proposals  of  President  Wilson  for  the  formation  of  a  League 
of  Nations,  to  ensure  and  maintain  peace.  The  idea  was  not 
wholly  a  new  one.  The  Amphictyonic  Council,  so  artfully 
manipulated  by  Philip  of  Macedon,  was  the  first  known  combina- 
tion of  peoples  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  war  ;  and  in  modern 
times  the  scheme  of  a  League  of  Nations  was  seriously  proposed 
to  Elizabeth  of  England  by  Henry  TV.  of  France. 

Henry  IV.  of  Navarre  was  a  man  of  such  powerful  character 
and  ability  that,  had  he  ascended  the  throne  of  France  at  an 
earlier  age,  he  might  well  have  played  with  success  the  part 
which  Louis  XIV.  attempted  later.  Only  Elizabeth  of  England, 
with  Lord  Burleigh  at  her  side,  was  at  all  on  the  same  level  with 
himself.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Henry  sketched  out,  and  to 
some  extent  filled  in  and  submitted  his  gigantic  plan  of  pacifica- 
tion, before  he  had  arrived  at  the  position  which  would  enable 
him  to  take  even  the  preliminary  steps  towards  its  execution. 
So  thorough-going  was  the  general  prograname  laid  down,  and 
so  far-reaching  its  inevitable  effects,  whether  successful  or  un- 
successful, when  attempted  on  the  large  scale  contemplated,  that 
Sully,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  wholly  failed  to  comprehend  what 
his  master  was  aiming  at.  However,  he  gradually  became  con- 
vinced of  the  value  of  the  project,  and  was  thenceforth  more 
enthusiastic  in  favour  of  it  than  Henry  himself. 

When  the  idea  of  ensuring  the  future  peace  of  Europe  was 
thus  discussed  and  put  in  shape,  Austria  seemed  as  great  a  source 
of  danger  to  her  neighbours  as  Germany  is  to-day.  Destruction 
of  Austrian  greatness  and  threatened  dominance  was  the  start- 
ing point  of  the   entire   programme.    The  whole  campaign, 

358 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  359 

military,  political  and  territorial,  was  carefully  thought  out 
beforehand.  Nothing  less  was  contemplated  than  such  an 
attack,  or  menace  of  attack,  by  an  irresistible  force,  as  would 
permanently  cripple  the  House  of  Hapsburg.  All  the  princes 
of  Europe  were  to  be  enriched  with  what  was  taken  from  Austria, 
and,  this  being  equally  distributed,  the  League  of  Peace  would 
be  established  on  the  basis  of  general  equality. 

France  and  England  were  to  gain  nothing  in  the  general  re- 
distribution except  "  spheres  of  influence,"  to  use  a  modern 
phrase.  To  Elizabeth,  on  this  question  of  possible  extension  on 
the  Continent  in  return  for  her  support,  is  attributed  the  sensible 
remark  that  the  British  islands,  under  all  their  different  mon- 
archies and  variation  of  their  laws,  had  never  undergone  any 
serious  misfortunes,  except  when  they  went  outside  their  own 
little  continent.  So  long  as  they  looked  after  their  own  subjects 
only,  they  fared  well  enough. 

Altogether,  here  was  a  programme  for  transforming  the  map 
of  Europe  which  has  never  been  equalled,  until  Prussianised 
Germany  set  to  work  in  earnest  to  carry  out  her  still  greater 
design  in  1914.  Throughout,  Henry  IV.  and  his  coadjutors 
assumed  that  the  House  of  Austria  would  be  so  intimidated  by 
the  formidable  league  against  it,  that  the  Emperor,  accepting  the 
substance  for  the  shadow,  would  exchange  a  definite  supremacy 
for  an  illusory  pre-eminence,  in  order  not  to  interfere  with  the 
establishment  of  the  great  League  of  Peace.  But  the  main  pro- 
moters of  the  rearrangement  probably  expected  the  Emperor 
would  fight  to  the  death ;  and  Henry  IV. 's  great  scheme  of  per- 
manent peace  would  have  begun  with  a  tremendous  European 
war. 

Further,  the  attack  was  not  to  be  directed  against  Austria 
alone.  Turkey  was  also  to  be  disposed  of,  and  posterity  relieved 
of  any  concern  about  the  Eastern  Question  at  the  same  time. 
The  Turks,  in  fact,  were  to  be  deprived  of  all  their  possessions  in 
Europe  and  carefully  restricted  to  Asia. 

Thus,  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  League  of  Peace, 
which  must  almost  certainly  begin  with  a  great  war  against 
Austria,  was  to  be  followed  by  another  great  war  against  Turkey. 
And,  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  European  Christianity  was  to 
be  consolidated  on  an  unshakeable  basis,  whose  main  idea  was 
that  the  antagonism  between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism 


360  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

should  be  regarded  as  a  drawn  battle.  The  existing  position 
was  stable  and  not  to  be  meddled  with.  Established  principles 
were  to  be  recognised  as  permanent  and  no  further  variations 
must  be  permitted  :  "  For  there  is  nothing  more  pernicious  than 
freedom  of  belief."  A  cynical  onlooker  might  draw  a  parallel 
between  this  portion  of  Henry  IV. 's  great  plan  and  that  clause 
of  the  modern  League  of  Nations  which  makes  all  the  present 
territorial  bounds  of  the  Great  Powers,  in  a  like  manner,  stable 
and  not  to  be  meddled  with.  No  further  national  and  racial 
variations  are  to  be  permitted. 

Doubts  and  difficulties  as  to  what  might  occur  on  the  field  of 
battle,  and  in  the  domain  of  religious  opinion,  easily  suggested 
themselves  to  such  cool,  detached  minds  as  those  of  Ehzabeth 
and  her  great  minister,  Burleigh.  The  Queen's  own  statements 
to  Sully,  though  showing  that  she  fully  appreciated  the  great 
project,  if  it  could  be  carried  through,  make  it  clear  also  that  she 
was  quite  alive  to  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  success. 

In  any  event,  Elizabeth,  as  she  hinted  to  Sully,  would  do  her 
best  to  keep  out  of  a  Continental  war.  But  she  did  not  point 
out  to  him  that,  at  the  end  of  any  struggle,  England  would  hold 
the  balance  between  the  two  conflicting  parties,  and  be  able  to 
throw  her  weight  on  the  side  most  congenial  to  her  interests. 

As  no  portion  of  this  vast  programme  was  ever  put  into 
operation,  owing  to  the  assassination  of  its  originator,  it  is 
scarcely  worth  while  to  consider  what  would  have  happened,  had 
this  great  Council  once  been  formed.  That  it  could  as  easily 
have  proved  a  centre  for  cabal  and  intrigue,  as  for  peace  and 
good-will,  is  apparent  at  once.  The  history  of  the  Amphictyonic 
Council  itself  is  not  encouraging  as  a  precursor  of  Henry's  great 
enterprise.  A  Philip  of  Macedon,  or  an  Alexander  of  seventeenth- 
century  Europe,  could  scarcely  have  desired  a  more  favourable 
field  on  which  to  exert  his  influence  to  the  advantage  of  his  own 
country.  And  it  is  undeniable  that  such  an  ambitious  warrior 
king  or  statesman  would  more  probably  arise  in  the  France  of 
that  day  than  in  any  other  nation.  None  the  less,  the  concep- 
tion of  a  peaceful  Europe,  submitting  all  its  differences  to  ad- 
judication by  a  League  of  Peace,  established  to  hold  the  balance 
even  between  all  parties,  was  a  magnificent  idea. 

Since  this  project  of  Henry  and  Elizabeth  was  put  before 
Europe,  no  leading  European  monarch  or  statesman  has  ven- 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  361 

tiu'ed  to  promulgate  similar  notions.  Philosophers  and  econom- 
ists, however,  seeing  no  prospect  of  reducing  their  theories  to 
practice,  have  been  bolder.  William  Penn  and  his  fellow- 
Quaker,  John  Bellers,  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
took  up  the  tale,  and  have  been  followed  by  St  Simon,  Owen, 
Kant  and  Mazzini,  as  well  as  by  St  Simon's  pupil,  Comte.  They 
all  advocated  a  United  States  of  Europe,  as  a  provision  against 
war  and  an  aid  to  general  progress. 

It  has  been  the  work  of  Germany  to  revive  the  projects  of  the 
sixteenth  and  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  centiu-y  in  a  more 
or  less  practical  shape,  by  forcing  all  nations  to  consider  some 
means  of  averting  for  the  next  generation,  and  future  genera- 
tions, such  a  cataclysm  as  that  which  she  brought  upon  man- 
kind in  the  twentieth  century.  During  the  stress  of  war,  all  the 
European  Powers  felt  that  some  kind  of  a  League  to  Enforce 
Peace  was  necessary  to  their  very  existence;  and  President 
Wilson  in  his  important  address  of  22nd  January  carried  for- 
ward, in  the  manner  best  calculated  to  attract  the  attention  of 
the  world,  the  propaganda  of  such  a  League. 

The  proposed  League  of  Nations,  of  which  Mr  Wilson's 
predecessor,  Mr  Taft,  was  president,  held  its  preliminary  Con- 
ference in  June,  1915,  at  Philadelphia,  and  its  first  Congress  in 
Washington  on  26th  May  1916.  At  the  dinner  which  closed 
this  Congress,  President  Wilson  delivered  the  final  speech  that 
was  practically  an  official  rehearsal  of  the  address  of  22nd 
January  to  Congress.  He  opened  on  this  occasion  in  the  follow- 
ing terms  : — "  It  is  right  that  I,  as  spokesman  of  our  Govern- 
ment, should  attempt  to  give  expression  to  what  I  believe  to  be 
the  thought  and  purpose  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  in 
this  vital  matter."  And  he  went  on  to  formulate  on  behalf  of 
the  nation,  as  its  chief  citizen,  what  its  thought  and  purpose 
was :  "  We  believe  these  fundamental  things :  First,  that 
every  people  has  a  right  to  choose  the  sovereignty  imder  which 
they  shall  Uve.  .  .  .  Second,  that  the  small  States  of  the  world 
have  the  right  to  enjoy  the  same  respect  for  their  sovereignty, 
and  for  their  territorial  integrity,  that  great  and  powerfvd  nations 
expect  and  insist  upon.  And,  third,  that  the  world  has  a  right 
to  be  free  from  every  disturbance  of  its  peace  that  has  its  origin 
in  aggression,  and  disregard  of  the  rights  of  peoples  and  nations.'* 

He  concluded  by  saying  :   "In  every  discussion  of  the  peace 


362  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

that  must  end  this  war  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  peace  must 
be  followed  by  a  definite  concert  of  the  Powers,  which  will  make 
it  virtually  impossible  that  any  such  catastrophe  should  ever 
overwhelm  us  again."  How  sadly  events  have  belied  these 
hopeful  words  !  Now,  two  years  after  the  end  of  war,  a  very 
large  section  of  the  peoples  in  all  the  belligerent  countries,  if 
not  the  majority  of  them,  have  returned  to  their  old  belief  that 
mankind  has  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  where  universal  peace 
can  be  secured.  Hating  war,  they  still  can  see  no  means 
whereby  it  is  to  be  definitely  averted. 

Unfortunately  the  "  Convention,"  as  it  was  called,  which 
gave  precedence  to  the  League  of  Nations  before  the  conclusion 
and  ratification  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  has  done  much  to  wreck 
the  whole  plan.  If  peace  had  been  promptly  and  equitably 
secured  after  the  Armistice,  the  League  of  Nations,  following 
thereupon,  could  have  been  modified  to  accord  with  the  views 
of  the  various  nations  brought  together  in  friendly  combina- 
tion. But  now  the  refusal  of  the  United  States  to  be  in  any 
way  responsible  for  the  arrangement,  as  it  stands,  has  rendered 
the  League  almost  useless.  For  America  is  not  only  the  most 
important  agricultural  and  industrial,  as  well  as  the  wealthiest 
nation  in  the  world,  but  she  is  also  the  most  formidable  single 
Power  of  all.^  Her  absence  from  the  League,  and  the  ap- 
parently growing  disinclination  of  her  people  to  accept  any 
permanent  responsibility  which  might  drag  them  into  further 
world-wide  complications,  outside  their  own  definite  interests, 
puts  the  whole  scheme  on  a  very  different  footing  from  that  con- 
templated by  President  Wilson,  when  he  pressed  his  personal 
convictions  upon  the  Peace  Congress  of  Paris.  The  mere  fact 
that  at  present  the  League,  or  so  much  of  it  as  subsists,  is  wholly 
powerless  to  impose  its  decisions  by  force  upon  any  recalcitrant 
member,  and  its  incapacity  for  the  same  reason  to  accept  any 

^  The  following  extract  from  a  recent  official  document  gives  a  fair  idea  of  what 
the  abstention  of  the  United  States  from  the  League  of  Nations  means,  from  the 
economic  point  of  view,  bearing  in  mind  that  these  figures  of  production  tend  to 
increase  rather  than  to  diminish:  "It  has  been  estimated  that,  although  the  U.S. 
represents  but  6  per  cent,  of  the  world's  population,  it  produces  70  per  cent,  of  the 
world's  copper,  66  per  cent,  of  the  mineral  oil,  75  per  cent,  of  the  corn,  60  per  cent, 
of  the  cotton,  52  per  cent,  of  the  coal,  40  per'cent.  of  the  iron  and  steel,  and  25  per 
cent,  of  the  wheat  of  the  whole  world."  The  increase  of  the  wealth  of  the  great 
Republic  during  the  war  has  been  quite  phenomenal,  and  Europe  is  heavily  in  her 
debt. 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  363 

"  mandate  "  for  the  reorganisation  and  rule  of  a  chaotic  region, 
such  as  Armenia,  proves  that,  excellent  as  the  ideas  which 
animate  its  advocates  may  be,  they  themselves  are  quite  unable 
to  carry  them  out. 

Obviously,  also,  there  are  serious  objections  to  the  entire  form 
of  the  League  so  far  designed.  Not  only  are  the  workers  of  the 
various  countries  which  constitute  the  League  completely  ex- 
cluded from  direct  authority  over  its  proceedings,  by  elected 
delegates,  or  otherwise,  but  the  domination  of  each  nation  over 
the  territories  it  holds  outside  its  own  nationality  is  assumed 
to  be  permanent,  upon  the  lines  decreed  by  the  Treaty  of  Peace. 
Thus  India  and  Ireland,  to  say  nothing  of  Mesopotamia,  Persia 
and  other  regions,  are  to  remain  under  English  rule,  regard- 
less of  the  principle  of  self-determination.  Tonking,  Cochin- 
China,  Madagascar,  Tunis,  etc.,  are  guaranteed  to  France,  Korea 
and  Shantung  to  Japan,  the  Philippines  to  the  United  States, 
the  Dutch  East  Indies — Java,  Sumatra,  etc. — to  Holland, 
Tripoli  to  Italy,  and  so  on.  Therefore  the  League  of  Nations 
begins  by  recognising  the  supremacy  of  the  white  man  over 
hundreds  of  millions  of  peoples  of  a  different  colour ;  and  goes 
on  to  accord  similar  rights  to  Japan  over  the  people  to  whom 
she  owed  her  civilisation  in  the  past.  This,  then,  is  an  Imperial- 
ist and  Capitalist,  not,  assuredly,  a  Peoples'  League.  And  the 
General  Secretary  appointed  to  carry  on  the  work  of  the  League 
of  Nations  is  Mr  Arthur  Balfour's  ex-secretary,  the  Hon.  Sir 
Eric  Dnunmond,  who  brings  with  him  to  his  new  office 
all  the  traditions  of  the  Enghsh  Foreign  Office,  in  matters  of 
diplomatic  intrigue  and  secret  agreements. 

Anxious,  therefore,  as  all  who  have  experienced  the  horrors 
of  the  recent  war  must  be,  to  accept  and  work  for  any  organisa- 
tion, national  or  international,  which  can  prevent  a  still  worse 
upheaval  in  the  future,  something  very  different  from  the  present 
combination  is  needed  to  ensure  peace  in  our  time.  Peace,  in 
fact,  can  only  be  made  certain  by  the  determination  of  the 
peoples  themselves  to  resist,  by  pressure  at  home,  all  attempts 
of  the  governing  class  in  any  country  to  enter  upon  hostilities. 
This  cannot  generally  be  brought  about  until  the  workers 
themselves  are  organised,  nationally  and  internationally,  to  act 
upon  agreed  lines  in  their  own  interests. 

Certainly  the  League  of  Nations  "has  endeavoured  to  set  on 


364  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

foot  an  International  Council,  which  shall  ensure  shorter  hours 
of  labour,  improved  rates  of  remuneration  and  better  social 
conditions  generally  for  the  workers  of  all  countries.  That  such 
a  Council  should  have  been  already  established,  and  be  able  to 
secure  general  official  assent  from  many  nations  to  the  proposal 
of  reforms  recently  advocated  by  Socialists  alone — such  as  a 
maximum  normal  working  day  of  eight  hours — proves  con- 
clusively that  the  idea  of  national  and  international  action  to 
restrict  the  exploitation  of  the  workers  of  all  nations  has  made 
great  way,  even  among  the  Ministerial  rulers,  who  primarily 
represent  the  interests  of  the  landowning  and  capitalist  classes. 
This,  in  itself,  is  a  great  peaceful  advance  which  will  be 
generally  beneficial  if  maintained. 

It  is  possible  that  if  the  present  scheme  were  reconstructed 
on  a  much  wider  foundation,  and  directly  elected  delegates  of 
the  workers  of  all  countries  had  full  representation — leading 
inevitably  to  control,  in  the  near  future — on  the  Council  of  the 
League,  some  efficient  machinery,  divorced  from  Imperialism 
and  Capitalism,  and  relieved  of  the  old  harmful  diplomacy, 
might  be  evolved.  But  until  the  workers  themselves,  who 
furnish  the  armies  with  troops  and  provide  their  supplies,  have 
such  effective  power,  until  the  League  and  its  Council  have  also, 
by  general  consent,  an  armed  force  at  their  disposal,  able,  in 
the  last  resort,  to  give  effect  to  their  decisions,  little  success 
will  be  achieved.  It  is  inconceivable  that  those  who  constitute 
the  fighting,  as  they  do  the  producing,  forces  of  every  nation 
can  be  permanently  excluded  from  any  efficient  League  of 
Nations,  though  their  presence  in  sufficient  numbers  to  give 
them  authority  would  undoubtedly  be  opposed  by  the  domi- 
nant class  of  our  day,  from  fear  of  the  decisive  social  issues 
which  would  then  at  once  be  raised. 

Meanwhile  the  champions  of  orderly,  organised,  political 
social  revolution  are  gaining  ground  in  every  European  country 
to  an  extent  undreamed  of  only  a  few  years  ago.  A  great,  suc- 
cessful revolution  need  not  necessarily  be  a  forcible  and  bloody 
revolution.  Thus  in  Sweden  the  well-known  international  re- 
volutionary Social  Democrat,  Branting,  has  quite  peaceably 
become  Prime  Minister.  In  Czecho-Slovakia  President  Masaryk 
is  favourable  to  Social  Democracy,  the  Prime  Minister  and  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  are  Social  Democrats ;  and  the  great 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  365 

agrarian  revolution  which  expropriated  the  large  landowners 
was  carried  through  without  the  shedding  of  a  drop  of  blood. 
In  Belgium,  the  Social  Democrats  in  the  Coalition  Cabinet  are 
the  most  powerful  ministers  of  the  whole  administration.  In 
Italy  no  Ministry  is  permanent  which  does  not  to  a  large  extent 
reconcile  its  views  with  the  opinions  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty-six  Socialist  deputies  in  the  Chamber.  In  France  the  im- 
fortunate  Pacifism  and  the  Bolshevism  of  many  of  the  Socialist 
leaders,  together  with  the  improper  apportionment  of  votes  in 
the  constituencies  by  the  Government  at  the  last  General  Elec- 
tion, have  prevented  the  Socialist  Party  from  obtaining  its 
rightful  representation  in  the  Assembly,  while  its  internal  dis- 
sensions have  weakened  its  influence.  Yet  their  own  growth 
in  numerical  strength,  and  the  conclusive  evidence  that  their 
political  influence  is  the  sole  alternative  to  a  constant  outbreak 
of  strikes,  is  convincing  those  who  are  hostile  to  SociaUsm  in 
theory  that  its  influence  must  be  recognised  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  the  nation. 

In  Germany  the  struggle  eventually  will  be  between  Social 
Democrats  and  reactionists.  Intermediate  factions  are  being 
crushed  out.  The  Kapp  coup  was  brought  to  naught  by  the 
Independent  Social  Democrats,  and  they  are  the  principal 
opponents  of  the  masked  manceuvres  of  the  Ludendorff  group. 

Unless,  therefore,  the  League  of  Nations  takes  full  account 
of  the  great  and  growing  aspirations  of  the  mass  of  mankind, 
abandons  altogether  its  Imperialist  and  Capitalist  policies  and 
relations,  reassures  doubters  of  its  good  faith  in  regard  to  any 
risings  of  the  people  which  may  threaten  the  existing  system  of 
economic  exploitation  of  the  working  class  in  the  different 
affiliated  countries,  it  is  extremely  improbable  that  it  will  attain 
any  considerable  amount  of  success.  While  the  philanthropists 
of  capitaUsm  have  been  philanthropising,  their  feUow-capitalists 
have  been  appropriating.  England  in  particular,  in  concur- 
rence with  her  special  ally,  Japan,  has  pursued  a  policy  of  an- 
nexation which  inevitably  sows  the  seeds  of  future  wars.  The 
same  with  France,  the  same  with  Italy.  And  the  newly  eman- 
cipated States,  as  witness  Poland,  are  not  disinclined  to  follow 
in  their  wake.  Meanwhile,  to  say  nothing  of  Ireland  and  Egypt, 
nearly  half  the  population  of  the  planet  in  India  and  China  are 
effectively  shut  out  from  championing  their  own  freedom  in  the 


366  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

one  case  and  the  historic  territorial  integrity  of  their  country  in 
the  other.  Yet  these  are  the  very  rights  of  emancipation  from 
foreign  control  and  protection  from  foreign  aggression  which, 
according  to  some  of  its  principal  working-class  supporters,  the 
League  of  Nations  has  been  established  to  secure. 

Economic  causes  produce  social  revolutions.  But  national 
antagonisms  and  racial  oppression,  as  well  as  economic  rivalry, 
have  often  brought  about  wars.  So  far,  it  would  appear  that 
there  is  nothing  better  calculated  to  usher  in  an  era  of  peace  in 
the  constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations  than  there  was  in  the 
"  great  plan  "  of  Henry  IV.  of  Navarre,  or  in  the  futile  Con- 
ventions of  The  Hague.  All  history  shows  that  there  is  no  more 
dangerous  element  in  human  nature  than  misguided  emotion 
or  unreasoning  zeal.  Both  will  be  at  the  mercy  of  greedy 
capitalism  and  designing  militarism,  already  preparing,  from 
at  least  two  quarters,  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunities 
for  intrigue  offered  them  in  the  League  of  Nations. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

BOLSHEVISM  AND   THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

The  Russian  Revolution  of  March,  1917,  was  a  remarkable  in- 
stance of  the  demand  for  a  great  pohtical  and  a  great  social 
transformation  coming  simultaneously,  the  people  as  a  whole 
being  prepared  in  sentiment,  though  not  in  intelligence  and 
education,  for  a  complete  change.  It  had  long  been  clear  that 
the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  decreed  by  the  Tsar  Alexander  II. 
had  not  materially  improved  the  condition  of  the  agricultural 
population  or  given  them  that  control  over  the  land  of  their 
country  which  might  have  led  to  a  peaceable  and  beneficial 
reconstruction  in  the  course  of  the  next  forty  or  fifty  years. 

As  it  was,  the  hberation  of  the  serfs,  which  was  regarded  in 
Western  Europe,  and  even  by  some  of  the  Russian  reformers 
themselves,  as  a  splendid  step  forward  to  economic  freedom, 
proved  to  be  one  vast  illusion.  Serfs  were  only  nominally  bene- 
fited by  their  enfranchisement.  They  were  actually  made  to 
pay  heavily  for  the  land  they  cultivated.  Their  social  status 
became,  therefore,  in  some  respects,  even  worse  than  it  had  been 
before.  Consequently  a  whole  series  of  unorganised  peasant 
revolts,  of  the  type  of  the  old  risings  of  serfs  and  peasants 
in  Western  Europe,  took  place  all  over  Russia,  and  these  were 
regarded  by  the  Tsar's  Government  as  criminal  ingratitude  for 
the  gracious  advantages  accorded  to  them  from  above.  Such 
spasmodic  upheavals  were  suppressed  with  ruthless  cruelty,  and 
aU  who  sympathised  with  the  risings  of  the  deluded  peasants  in 
town  or  country,  whether  they  were  avowed  Socialists  or  merely 
opportunist  reformers,  were  treated  with  the  utmost  rigour  as 
enemies  of  a  paternal  government  whose  high-minded  policy 
was  being  misrepresented  and  used  by  misguided  revolution- 
aries as  a  pretext  for  upsetting  all  law  and  order. 

So  hopeless  did  the  position  become,  owing  to  the  bigotry  and 
tyranny  of  the  autocratic  monarch  and  his  officials,  that  capable 
and  intelligent  patriots  and  enthusiasts  were  compelled  to  form 
367 


y 


368  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

secret  societies,  and  to  resort  to  terrorism  and  assassination 
from  below,  as  the  only  possible  means  of  resisting  effectively 
legalised  torture  and  murder  from  above.  The  survivors  of 
these  devoted  men  and  women,  the  majority  of  whom  suffered 
death  by  hanging,  or  from  prolonged  incarceration,  have  been 
able  to  show,  under  better  conditions,  that  only  the  most  un- 
endurable tyranny  drove  them  to  commit,  or  to  connive  at, 
deeds  which  they  would  have  been  the  first  to  stigmatise  as 
crimes,  had  only  reasonable  freedom  of  propaganda  and  educa- 
tion been  allowed.  It  is  even  possible,  as  some  have  contended, 
that,  had  their  methods  of  violence  been  carried  out  as  fully  as 
originally  intended,  they  might  have  rendered  impossible  the 
systematic  tyranny  under  which  they  groaned,  and  might  thus 
have  brought  the  land  question,  the  question  of  all  questions, 
to  an  earlier  solution  in  Russia.  Such  hypothetical  possibilities 
need  not  now  be  considered.  Events  followed  their  course, 
little  affected  by  the  "  removal "  of  individuals,  from  the  Tsar 
downwards. 

Owing  to  increased  taxation,  payment  of  the  land  "  indem- 
nity," official  corruption  and  defective  methods  of  cultivation, 
together  with  a  lack  of  highroads  or  local  roads,  and  a  deficiency 
also  of  railroad  communications,  the  peasants  in  rural  Russia 
became  poorer  and  poorer,  while  a  relatively  very  much 
smaller  proportion  of  the  population  was  being  developed  into 
a  genuine  landless,  propertyless  proletariat,  in  the  great  cities, 
mostly  in  the  employment  of  the  State.  So  bad  had  the  con- 
ditions of  the  emancipated  serfs  become  that  in  the  early  years 
of  the  present  century,  just  prior  to  the  attempted  revolution  of 
1905-1906,  the  ablest  Russian  authority  on  economics,  A.  A. 
Issaieff,  ex-Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  the  University 
of  St  Petersburg,  declared  that  it  would  require  thousands  of 
millions  of  roubles  merely  to  put  back  Russian  agriculture 
where  it  had  been  twenty  years  before.  There  had  been, 
during  that  period,  a  steady  and  cumidative  decUne  in  Russian 
agricultural  prosperity,  although  exports  of  agricultural  pro- 
duce to  Western  Europe  had  increased.  Official  Russian  re- 
ports give  evidence  to  the  same  effect.  At  the  same  time,  the 
increase  of  the  industrial  workers  in  the  cities  provided  a  field 
for  the  propagation  of  Socialist  doctrines,  which  in  all  countries 
have  followed  the  establishment  of  the  great  factory  industry, 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  369 

and  the  development  of  the  wage-earning  class  attached 
thereto. 

Thus,  as  time  went  on,  the  disaffection  of  the  peasantry  was 
intensified  and  the  ill-feeling  of  the  wage-earners  in  the  cities 
grew  apace.  In  both  cases  there  were  the  soundest  grounds  for 
ill-feeUng  against  the  ruhng  minority,  who  used  a  section  of  the 
people,  in  the  form  of  bureaucrats,  pohce  officers,  spies  and 
ignorant  soldiery,  to  crush  down  all  resistance  on  the  part  of 
the  overw^helming  majority  of  Russians.  There  were  but  two 
redeeming  economic  and  social  features  in  this  day  of  ruthless 
repression  :  the  growth  of  the  democratic  zemstvos  and  co- 
operative combinations,  with  the  spread  of  the  agrarian  Socialism 
of  the  Social  Revolutionaries  in  the  rural  districts,  and  the 
creation  of  groups  of  Marxian  Social  Democrats,  educated  in 
the  full  principles  of  scientific  Socialism,  among  the  workers  of 
the  towns.  But  both  these  attempts  to  organise  for  a  definite 
Socialist  advance,  suited  to  the  stage  of  civihsation  at  which  the 
country  as  a  whole  and  its  various  class  and  industrial  sections 
had  arrived,  were  regarded  by  Nicholas  II.  and  his  reactionary 
advisers  with  equal  hostility,  and  kept  down  as  far  as  possible 
by  every  available  means. 

Throughout  this  long  record  of  Tsarist  tyranny  and  religious 
bigotry,  varied  by  continuous  persecutions  and  occasional  pog- 
roms of  the  Jews,  the  old  Russia  of  the  "  natural  economy,"  in 
which  nobles  and  peasants  alike  lived  upon  the  produce  of  their 
own  soil,  and  were  clothed  with  their  own  village  and  domestic 
manufactures,  was  passing  gradually  into  the  exchange  stage, 
in  which  production  for  the  market  and  money  control  of  com- 
merce became  the  rule,  and  the  old  production  for  use  faded. 
Not  only  were  the  towns  and  mining  centres  affected  by  this 
modification,  but  a  silent  revolution  in  nu-al  life  was  brought 
about,  drawing  a  proportion  of  the  peasantry,  as  we  have  said, 
from  the  country  into  the  larger  agglomerations  of  population. 

Simultaneously,  also,  the  small  industries  carried  on  by  the 
former  serfs  in  their  cottages  throughout  the  weary  months  of 
winter,  when  no  agricultural  work  could  be  done,  fell  into  the 
hands  of  sweaters  of  the  worst  kind.  The  descriptions  given  in 
reports,  by  men  who  specially  examined  into  the  conditions  of 
air,  heat,  cleanliness  and  artificial  light,  under  which  these  small 
manual  industries  were  conducted,  and  the  prices  paid  to  the 

2  A 


370  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

toilers,  alone  justified  social  insurrection.  In  order  to  verify 
every  detail  of  the  horrible  disclosures  thus  made,  one  of  the 
investigators — a  man  of  high  academic  distinction — devoted 
himself  to  work  in  these  winter  avocations  for  two  successive 
years,  in  different  parts  of  Russia. 

That  the  peasants  were  compelled  by  excessive  taxation, 
failing  crops  and  debt  to  submit,  summer  and  winter,  to  such 
slavish  misery,  in  order  merely  to  live,  strengthened  their  longing 
to  possess  the  land  for  themselves  and  their  children,  and  was 
the  main  point  of  any  revolution,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned. 
The  generation  of  Russians  from  1862  to  1898,  when  the  Social- 
Democratic  Party  was  founded  by  Plechanoff,  and  the  Social 
Revolutionaries,  with  the  zemstvos  virtually  behind  them,  were 
actively  at  work,  constituted  the  direct  preparatory  period  for 
the  coming  Russian  upheaval.  Their  theoretic  differences 
about  the  policy  to  be  adopted,  when  the  actual  revolution  came, 
were  even  then  apparent.  But  the  terrorist  action  of  the 
Government  forced  the  conservative  rural  population  to  make 
common  cause  with  the  extreme  section  of  the  wage-earning 
population  of  the  towns.   The  terrorism  of  1877  to  1890  revived. 

Thenceforward,  as  has  been  well  said,  Russian  politics  became 
a  conflict  between  two  terrorisms :  the  terrorism  of  absolute 
Tsardom  above,  the  terrorism  of  organised  revolution  below. 
But  the  former  was  exerted  against  a  whole  nation  :  the  latter 
was  the  protest  against  frightful  tyranny  by  a  few  individuals. 
During  the  whole  of  this  desperate  struggle,  in  the  early  years 
of  the  twentieth  century,  events  told,  as  all  can  now  see,  on  the 
side  of  the  people.  While  the  peasants  were  still  called  upon  to 
pay  the  yearly  indemnity  for  the  land,  which  ought  to  have  been 
granted  to  them  gratuitously;  while  their  zemstvos  and  co- 
operative societies  were  more  stringently  dealt  vnth  than  ever ; 
while  heavy  taxation  and  official  malversation  rendered  their  lot 
more  and  more  unendurable ;  while  the  still  small  but  growing 
city  proletariat  was  exposed  to  exploitation  and  maltreatment 
in  every  shape ;  while  the  educated  classes  were  being  driven  to 
recognise  that  only  by  complete  revolution  could  Russia  hope 
to  overcome  the  infinite  mischief  caused  by  tyrannous,  corrupt 
and  incapable  misgovernment — ^while  all  this  was  going  on,  the 
Japanese  War,  with  the  resulting  humiliation  of  Russia's  military 
power,  displayed  to  all  Russians  a  lack  of  intelligence,  honesty 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  371 

and  statesmanlike  qualities  on  the  part  of  their  rulers  which 
shook  popular  confidence  to  its  foundations. 

The  Government  of  the  Tsar  was  proved  to  be  as  incompetent 
in  military  matters  as  it  was  cruel  and  inefficient  in  civil  affairs. 
Every  soldier  and  sailor  who  returned  from  the  Far  East,  after 
the  Peace  of  Portsmouth,  told  in  country  and  town  such  tales 
of  neglect  of  the  cormnon  people  in  arms,  of  the  brutality  of 
officers,  of  the  inferiority  of  the  generals,  and  of  wholesale  mal- 
versation and  even  civil  and  military  treachery  by  officials  in 
high  places,  that  the  whole  Empire  was  filled  with  indignation. 
Hence,  as  sometimes  occurs  in  human  affairs,  anger  at  national 
humihation  abroad  combined  with  economic,  social  and  political 
causes  at  home  to  render  revolution  in  some  form  certain  within 
a  few  years.  Moreover,  the  Tsarist  terrorism,  terrible  as  it  was, 
had  been  temporarily  beaten  by  the  revolutionary  terrorists  in 
a  series  of  successful  assassinations  from  1901  onwards,  culmin- 
ating in  the  "  executions  "  of  Plehve  and  the  Archduke  Sergius 
in  1904  and  1905.  The  agitation  for  constitutional  govern- 
ment, but  not  as  yet  for  the  overthrow  of  Tsardom,  took  a 
definite  shape,  and  demands  arose,  from  an  important  Conven- 
tion of  representatives  from  all  parts  of  Russia  to  form  a  Con- 
stitutional Ministry.  These  demands  the  Government  did  not 
accept,  but  the  promoters  of  the  Convention,  which  was  called 
together  by  the  heads  of  the  zemstvos,  were  not  arrested. 

This  was  in  November,  1904.  In  January,  1905,  large  bodies 
of  working  men,  who  certainly  could  not  be  called  violent  re- 
volutionists, but  were  rather  men  who  hoped  to  gain  social  ad- 
vantage through  direct  appeal  to  the  Tsar  as  the  father  of  Russia, 
went  out  on  strike.  The  strikers,  under  the  leadership  of  the 
priest.  Father  Gapon,  issued  a  proclamation  containing  a  pro- 
gramme which,  though  moderate  from  the  Socialist  standpoint, 
was  distinctly  revolutionary  of  all  conditions  then  existing  in 
Russia.  To  advocate  general  freedom,  ministerial  responsi- 
bility to  the  people,  free  State  education,  abrogation  of  all  in- 
demnity payment  on  land,  an  eight-hour  day,  freedom  of  com- 
bination and  right  to  strike  against  capitalists,  and  a  minimum 
wage,  with  complete  representation  of  the  people,  was  certainly 
a  political  and  labour  programme  that  spelt  the  downfall  of 
unlimited  autocracy  almost  as  completely  as  the  full  Socialist 
claims  formulated  later.     Yet  the  bearers  of  this  petition  to  the 


372  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLITTION 

Tsar  went  forward  to  the  palace  of  the  Emperor  himself,  singing 
hymns  in  his  honour  and  exhibiting  loyalty  of  the  most  effusive 
kind  to  his  person.  Those  who  distrusted  Father  Gapon,  and 
regarded  him  merely  as  an  agent  of  the  reactionary  Tsarist 
coterie,  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  it.  Could  it  be  possible 
that  the  Tsar,  a  mild,  easily  influenced  personage,  had  decided 
to  abandon  his  bigoted  advisers  and  take  the  sting  out  of  revolu- 
tion, by  accepting  constitutional  demands  and  the  limitation 
alike  of  autocratic  and  capitalist  power  ? 

.  The  answer  came  as  soon  as  the  vast  deputation  arrived  in 
front  of  the  Winter  Palace.  A  fusillade  was  opened  upon  the 
unarmed  multitude  by  bodies  of  soldiers  who  had  previously 
been  concealed.  Hundreds  of  the  deputationists  were  killed 
and  thousands  wounded.  This  massacre,  since  known  as 
"  Bloody  Sunday,"  is  now  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  the  first 
and  unsuccessful  Russian  Revolution.  From  one  end  of  Russia 
strikes  were  begun,  meetings  were  called,  and  all  classes,  re- 
gardless of  economic  and  social  differences,  set  to  work  to 
organise  to  put  an  end  to  a  government  which  resorted  to  such 
monstrous  methods  of  repression.  Industrial  wage-earners  and 
peasants  were  for  once  agreed. 

This  was  indeed  the  commencement  of  the  political  revolution. 
The  first  Duma,  or  Constituent  Assembly,  elected  by  the  whole 
country  did  really  represent  the  full  amount  of  development 
to  which  Russia,  with  her  165,000,000  of  peasants,  the  vast 
majority  of  whom  were  uneducated,  had  yet  attained.  It  was 
not,  of  course,  a  Socialist  Assembly,  though  Social  Democrats 
and  agrarian  Socialists  were  well  represented.  But  the  majority 
of  its  members  were  opposed  to  any  continuance  of  the  arbitrary 
powers  of  the  Tsar,  and  there  was  good  reason  to  hope  that,  if 
all  advanced  parties  made  common  cause  to  this  end,  a  new 
political  era  would  dawn  for  the  nation  in  which  the  great  social 
problems  of  the  land  and  the  city  industries  might  be  peacefully 
worked  out. 

This  was  the  view  of  George  Plechanoff ,  the  brilliant  founder 
and  leader  of  the  Marxist  Social-Democratic  Party.  But  it  was 
not  the  opinion  of  Lenin  (or  Ulianoff ),  the  head  of  another  section 
of  the  same  party.  Lenin,  though  a  fanatical  Marxist  himself, 
and  at  this  time  a  great  admirer  and  friend  of  Plechanoff,  was 
bitterly  opposed  to  any  arrangement  whatever  with  the  educated 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  373 

classes  and  the  bourgeoisie.  This,  according  to  Iiim,  would 
take  all  the  fighting  class  spirit  out  of  the  real  revolutionary 
force,  the  propertyless  proletariat,  who,  though  a  small  minority 
of  the  population,  contained  within  themselves  all  the  real 
knowledge  and  power  necessary  for  a  class-conscious  revolution. 
The  bourgeoisie  were,  in  their  nature,  oppressors  of  the  workers, 
the  peasants  were  inevitably  a  great  reactionary  element,  owing 
to  their  economic  position,  their  lack  of  education  and  the  re- 
striction of  their  aspirations  to  the  acquisition  of  land  for  them- 
selves. Consequently,  though  it  might  not  be  possible  for 
Russia  to  avoid  passing  through  the  capitalist  stage  of  evolution, 
it  was  injurious  to  the  whole  revolutionary  movement  to  begin 
by  co-operating  with  their  most  direct  enemies,  who  would 
eventually  prove  more  dangerous  to  the  cause  than  even 
Tsardom  itself. 

Plechanoff  argued,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  first  thing  to  be 
done  was  to  rid  Russia,  as  a  nation,  of  despotic  rule,  and  that 
those  who  were  ready  to  strive  honestly  with  the  mass  of  the 
people  for  that  purpose,  whether  they  belonged  to  the  bourgeoisie 
or  the  peasantry,  were  useful,  and  indeed  indispensable,  allies 
for  all  who  were  endeavouring  to  reach  the  same  pohtical  goal. 
But,  throughout  this  period,  Lenin  took  up  the  extreme  dog- 
matic, doctrinaire  standpoint  that  all  compromise  was  harmful 
and  treacherous  to  their  great  ideal.  This,  in  an  empire  such  as 
Russia,  was  to  play  directly  into  the  hands  of  reaction,  and  that 
was  precisely  the  effect  of  Lenin's  policy  at  that  juncture.  It 
brought  him  into  very  strange  company ;  for  his  most  intimate 
friend  and  associate,  in  his  assaults  upon  the  Duma  and  the 
Plechanoff  section  of  Social  Democrats,  was  Malinovsky,  after- 
wards proved  to  be  a  police  spy  and  agent  provocateur  in  the  pay 
of  the  Government ;  although  Lenin's  confidence,  or  pretended 
confidence,  in  this  person  was  such  that  he  not  only  supported 
him  as  a  champion  of  his  theories  in  the  Duma,  but  went  so  far 
as  to  nominate  him,  later,  as  one  of  the  delegates  for  Russia  on 
the  International  Socialist  Bureau.  Before  he  could  come  up 
for  election  to  that  body,  Malinovsky's  real  character  was 
discovered  and  exposed. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lenin's  tactics  at  this  period  did 
immense  harm  to  the  general  cause,  and  helped  the  Tsar's 
Government  to  recover  the  reactionary  dominance  which  had 


374  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

nearly  slipped  from  their  grasp.  That  Lenin  knew  Malinovsky 
was  a  Tsarist  agent  seems  scarcely  open  to  question.  But  it 
may  well  be  that  Lenin  believed  himself  to  be  using  Malinovsky 
against  both  Tsarism  and  Parliamentarism,  while  Malinovsky, 
the  clever  spy,  undoubtedly  was  using  him. 

The  whole  matter  is  referred  to  here,  because  at  this  point 
of  Lenin's  opposition — with  the  help  of  Trotsky,  Zinovieff 
and  others  who  afterwards  co-operated  with  him  in  more 
serious  circumstances — ^to  Parliamentarism  generally  and 
Plechanoff' s  policy  in  particular,  the  real  foundations  of  irre- 
concilable antagonism  to  all  forms  of  co-operation  with  other 
parties,  and  the  fanatical  determination  to  seize  power  by  a 
minority,  were  laid.  The  terms  Bolshevik  (majority)  and  Men- 
shevik  (minority)  in  the  Marxist  Social-Democratic  Party  soon 
ceased  to  have  any  real  significance  in  that  sense,  for  the  two 
sections  changed  places  in  regard  to  their  relative  numbers 
more  than  once.  But  "  Bolshevik  "  came  to  mean  that  body  of 
Russian  Social  Democrats  who,  regardless  of  all  other  considera- 
tions, were  prepared  at  any  moment  to  use  all  means  to  push 
extreme  revolutionary  methods  to  the  front.  In  the  first 
Russian  Revolution,  with  its  apparently  successful  establish- 
ment of  the  popularly  elected  Duma,  they  had  no  chance  of 
grasping  power  for  themselves.  All  they  could  do  was  to  shake 
the  belief  of  those  whom  they  could  influence,  in  any  political 
electoral  body  whatever,  and  to  widen  the  existing  breach  be- 
tween the  wage-earners  of  the  towns  and  the  peasantry.  This 
the  Bolsheviks  then  did  so  far  as  they  could. 

With  the  election  of  the  first  Duma,  and  the  nominal  accept- 
ance by  the  Tsar  of  Constitutional  Government,  there  was  a 
general  belief,  not  only  in  Russia  itself  but  throughout  Western 
Europe,  that  the  Empire  of  the  Tsar  had  entered  upon  a  course 
of  peaceful  transformation  which  would  be  beneficial  to  the 
Russian  people  and  the  world  at  large.  There  coiild  scarcely 
have  been  a  greater  delusion.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that, 
from  the  very  commencement  of  Parliamentary  discussions  in 
the  Duma,  and  the  formation  of  a  responsible  Ministry,  reaction 
began  to  gain  groimd.  With  the  army  still  at  his  disposal,  with 
the  corrupt  official  class  favourable  to  the  autocracy  which  gave 
them  power  to  enrich  themselves,  with  the  powerful  police 
organisation  ready  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  orders  they 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  375 

were  accustomed  to  receive  from  above,  and  with  the  Church 
entirely  opposed  to  anything  approaching  to  reasonable  demo- 
cracy, the  Tsar  proved  to  be  stronger  for  evil,  after  the  creation 
of  the  Duma,  than  he  had  been  before.  Moved  thereto  by  his 
reactionary  coimsellors,  he  was  able  to  refuse  to  recognise  its 
authority. 

This  was  not  due  to  any  weakness,  or  lack  of  initiative,  on  the 
part  of  the  Duma  and  its  members.  They  issued  a  programme 
which  embodied  in  moderate  language  all  the  poUtical  and 
personal  freedom  for  which  they  had  been  agitating  in  the  con- 
stituencies, and  demanded  at  the  same  time  the  surrender  of  the 
land  to  the  peasants  and  the  passage  of  measures  of  social  legis- 
lation to  protect  the  workers  of  the  towns.  This  democratic 
and  semi-Socialist  poUcy  was  accepted  by  the  Duma  almost 
unanimously.  The  Tsar,  emboldened  by  the  now  rallied  and 
still  unbroken  forces  of  reaction,  summarised  above,  and  by  the 
evidence  of  dissension,  however  small  in  amount,  on  the  popular 
side,  dissolved  the  first  Duma,  and  from  that  time  onwards  until 
1910  and  1911  the  old  forms  of  reaction  were  in  full  swing. 
Though  the  second,  third  and  fomth  Dumas  were  summoned, 
and  thus  constitutional  forms,  to  which  the  Tsar  had  pledged 
himself,  were  not  wholly  discarded,  moderate  reformers  as  well 
as  Socialists  were  imprisoned,  driven  into  exile  or  executed, 
Jews  were  persecuted  and  terrorised  as  before,  and,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, the  fine  uprising  following  upon  Bloody  Sunday  had 
been  successfully  crushed  down. 

Rarely  had  the  natural  tendencies  of  autocracy  exhibited 
themselves  in  more  detestable  shape,  and  this  at  a  time  when 
the  word  "  revolution  "  was  on  everyone's  lips,  discouraged  as 
reformers  of  every  shade  of  opinion  had  been  at  the  failure  of 
their  great  effort.  Ripe,  too,  as  economic  and  social  conditions 
were  for  complete  change,  especially  in  regard  to  political  in- 
stitutions, general  liberties  and  the  land,  the  education  and 
organisation  of  the  mass  of  the  people  were  so  defective  that 
Tsardom,  controlling  the  only  existing  administrative  forces, 
and  filled  with  the  religious  conception  of  the  divine  right  of 
the  monarch  to  dominate  the  country,  had  an  enormous  ad- 
vantage. The  bourgeoisie,  unlike  the  Tiers  Etat  of  the  French 
Revolution,  had  little  experience  or  training  in  great  affairs. 
Though,  therefore,  the  leaders  of  the  people  did  their  best, 


376  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

ignorance,  apathy,  lack  of  cohesion  and  the  habit  of  obedience 
rendered  their  followers  incapable  of  grasping  the  opportunity 
prepared  for  them  by  economic  conditions,  and  rendered  more 
obvious  by  the  incapacity  of  the  men  at  the  head  of  the  State 
to  estimate  the  probabilities  of  the  immediate  future.  Hence, 
during  the  years  immediately  succeeding  the  dissolution  of  the 
first  Duma,  it  looked  as  if  Russia  were  doomed  to  another  long 
period  of  furious  repression. 

There  was,  indeed,  a  superficial  similarity  in  these  years  with 
those  which  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution. 
A  weak,  hvmiane  and  possibly  well-meaning  monarch,  cursed 
with  a  German  instead  of  an  Austrian  consort.  That  consort 
wholly  incapable  of  understanding  or  appreciating  the  people 
over  whom  she  came  to  rule,  and  under  the  domination  of  priests, 
charlatans  and  traitors,  who  played  upon  her  feelings  for  the 
country  of  her  birth.  This  above.  Below,  a  mass  of  toiling, 
ill-nourished  semi-serfs.  Around  the  Court  a  body  of  self- 
seeking  and  corrupt  officials  and  nobility,  who  cared  for  no 
interest  but  their  own.  The  resemblance  to  the  position  in 
France  before  1789  was  nevertheless  only  partial,  and  the 
difference  already  noted  between  the  numbers  and  organisation 
of  the  French  educated  men  of  business  and  professional  class, 
and  the  extent  and  experience  of  the  Russians  of  the  same  class, 
alone  rendered  any  comparison  illusory.  It  is  nevertheless 
true  that,  had  Nicholas  II.  thrown  off  the  influence  of  his  half- 
insane  Tsaritsa  and  his  bigoted  men  of  God,  and  taken  the  advice 
of  statesmen  and  members  of  his  own  family,  who  foresaw  the 
course  of  events,  he  might,  as  Louis  XVI.  could  have  done  when 
Turgot  and  Malesherbes  were  in  power,  have  quite  possibly 
helped  forward  a  peaceful  and  beneficial  revolution.  But  the 
Tsar  Nicholas  had  no  high  faculties  of  any  kind. 

Instead  of  coming  forward  as  the  leader  and  father  of  his 
people,  he  persisted  in  the  policy  of  repression,  even  when  the 
revival  of  the  insurrectionary  spirit,  temporarily  damped  down, 
manifested  itself  afresh,  from  1910  onwards,  by  political  strikes 
of  a  threatening  character  and  obviously  revolutionary  demon- 
strations all  over  Russia.  Russia  was,  in  fact,  in  a  perpetual 
ferment,  from  the  students  and  wage-earners  of  the  towns  to 
the  peasantry,  which  the  Government  was  quite  unable  to  put 
down.    More  than  one  First  of  May  Demonstration  was  a  definite 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  377 

menace  to  the  reactionary  Tsardom,  which  imagined  that  the 
power  to  check  progress  was  still  at  its  command.  The  entire 
educated  class  sympathised  with  this  renewal  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  suppressed  a  few  years  before.  It  was  when 
this  fresh  movement  was  gaining  ground,  and  all  hoped  that 
free  Russia  would  ere  long  assert  herself,  in  spite  of  attempts  to 
keep  her  down,  that  the  Great  War  began. 

At  first  differences  were  sunk  in  a  conmion  national  effort  to 
defeat  the  common  enemy ;  though  even  then  the  extreme  Bol- 
shevist section  declaimed  against  any  war,  even  for  national 
defence,  which  might  interfere  with  the  class  war  at  home. 
Not,  however,  until  the  earlier  successes  had  been  forgotten 
in  a  series  of  defeats,  and  the  intrigues  of  the  Tsaritsa  with  her 
friends,  Stiirmer  and  Protopopoff,  supported  by  Rasputin,  to 
surrender  corruptly  to  Germany  were  generally  known,  did  the 
people  display  any  disposition  to  bring  about  a  revolution  so 
long  as  hostilities  lasted.  The  manifest  treachery  of  M.  Stiirmer, 
scathingly  exposed  by  M.  Mihliukoff  in  the  Duma,  and  the 
obscene  and  pernicious  influence  exerted  by  Rasputin  over  the 
Empress  becoming  well  known,  there  was  a  general  prepara- 
tion for  an  upheaval.  But  even  the  private  execution  of  Ras- 
putin did  not  awaken  the  Tsar's  Ministers  to  the  dangers  ahead. 
M.  Stiirmer,  though  ejected  from  the  Ministry,  was  appointed  to 
an  important  position  in  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  pro-German 
intrigues  went  on  as  before.  The  reactionists  refused  to  pay 
attention  to  anything  but  their  own  sinister  policy  of  surrender 
to  the  enemy,  and  thought  of  nothing  less  than  granting  Uberties 
to  the  Russian  people. 

In  all  this  Nicholas  II.  supported  his  Ministers.  Far  from 
feeling  their  own  lot  in  jeopardy,  these  same  Ministers,  when  the 
army  was  seething  with  disaffection  and  disgust  at  the  manner 
in  which  Russia's  tremendous  exertions  and  wholesale  sacrifices 
had  been  frittered  away  by  treacherous  generals,  such  as  Suk- 
lominoff ,  worse  administrators,  and  shameless  corruption  in  every 
department,  actually  thought  it  good  policy  to  foment  a  rising 
in  the  capital.  They  did  this  confident  that  its  speedy  sup- 
pression would  confirm  them  in  the  exercise  of  supreme  power, 
thus  enabling  them  to  make  the  immediate  peace  with  Germany 
for  which  they  had  so  long  been  plotting.  But  the  scheme  was 
mismanaged  by  MM.  Protopopoff  and  Stiimier's  own  adherents, 


378  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

the  troops  and  even  the  corps  d'Sliie  of  the  guards  sided  with 
the  people ;  so  that  the  Tsar  and  his  Government  found  them- 
selves, quite  unexpectedly,  face  to  face  with  a  successful  revolu- 
tion that  they  themselves  had  provoked.  The  downfall  of  the 
Romanoff  dynasty  was  decreed. 

The  amount  of  bloodshed,  especially  when  compared  with  the 
result  achieved,  was  very  small  in  the  capital ;  but  in  the  country 
districts,  so  soon  as  the  news  of  what  had  occurred  in  Petrograd 
spread  into  the  provinces,  the  peasants  carried  out  wholesale 
attacks  upon  the  landowners  in  many  districts,  of  which  a  full 
account  has  never  reached  Western  Europe.  But  all  this  is  a 
matter  of  general  history.  What  is  not  so  well  understood  is 
that,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  of  17th  March  1917,  Russia 
was  already  desperately  impoverished  by  the  war,  the  army  was 
in  a  condition  of  complete  disintegration  and  indiscipline,  the 
feeling  among  the  workers  in  favour  of  peace  at  any  price  with 
Germany  was  growing,  and  nothing  short  of  the  revival  of  a 
great  spirit  of  national  energy  and  self-sacrifice  could  save  the 
country  from  drifting  into  disruption  and  anarchy.  The 
economic  condition,  bad  before,  had  grown  worse  each  day  ;  for 
there  is  now  no  doubt  that  the  reactionists  had  deliberately 
encouraged  maladministration  on  the  railways  and  in  other 
departments,  with  the  idea  that  a  breakdown  of  transport  and  a 
consequent  shortage  of  supplies  would  help  them  and  baffle  the 
revolutionists. 

The  terrible  difficulties  which  this  state  of  things  entailed  for 
those  who  might  endeavour  to  bring  order  out  of  this  chaos  were 
not  at  first  recognised.  In  Western  Europe,  the  successful  re- 
volution was  welcomed  by  all  parties  as  the  opening  of  a  new 
and  glorious  period  of  free  development  for  a  great  Empire 
crushed  for  centuries  under  a  harmful  despotism.  But  it  was 
soon  apparent  that  the  revolutionary  leaders  had  undertaken  no 
light  task.  The  disaffection  in  the  army  alone,  consisting  almost 
entirely  of  peasants,  many  of  whom  were  anxious  to  get  back 
to  their  own  villages,  in  order  to  get  their  share  of  the  land  in  the 
first  days  of  seizure  and  redistribution,  was  sufficient  to  tax  the 
abilities  of  the  ablest  statesmen  to  the  utmost,  while  the  problem 
of  dealing  with  the  officials  of  the  old  regime,  who  still  constituted 
the  only  general  administrative  force  of  the  country,  was  by  no 
means  easy  to  solve.     A  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  people, 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  379 

nearly  all  in  the  seventeenth-century  period  of  economic  and 
social  development,  gauged  by  Western  standards,  and  the  great 
majority  illiterate,  could  not  be  dealt  with  in  accordance  with 
Socialist  principles  barely  appUcable  to  an  industrial  society  of 
the  twentieth  century. 

Therefore  it  would  not  be  reasonable  to  criticise  harshly  the 
Provisional  Government,  and  more  particularly  Kerensky  and 
his  associates,  because  they  failed  to  dominate  an  almost  un- 
manageable situation.  To  re-establish  miUtary  discipline  in  a 
disaffected  army,  and  at  the  same  time  to  give  the  whole  of  the 
soldiery  the  benefit  of  the  latest  principles  of  democracy,  was 
an  impossible  task.  Kerensky  himself  saw  that  he  was  imder- 
taking  a  forlorn  hope,  when  he  accepted  the  leadership  that  was 
forced  upon  him  by  the  consensus  of  public  opinion.  His  sign- 
ing of  the  Manifesto  granting  complete  democratic  rights  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  army,  at  the  same  time  that  he  proclaimed 
his  intention  to  enforce  an  iron  discipline,  has  been  vigorously 
denounced  as  extreme  weakness.  But  he  had,  as  leader  of  the 
peasant  Social  Revolutionaries  and  Radical  Socialists,  declared 
for  war  at  the  start,  and  unless  he  had  decided  to  act  as  dictator 
it  is  hard  to  see  what  he  could  have  done  in  view  of  the  universal 
democratic  flood  that  was  sweeping  everything  before  it  at  this 
juncture. 

Plechanoff,  Alexinsky  Aksentieff,  and  other  Social  Democrats 
had  been  at  one  with  Kerensky  and  his  friends  in  advocating 
the  defence  of  Russia  against  Germany,  and  their  Manifesto 
to  this  effect  was  one  of  the  most  important  political  docu- 
ments published  at  this  critical  time.  Yet,  at  the  beginning, 
the  Social  Democrats  had  abstained  from  voting  the  War 
Credits.  They  were  likewise  ready  to  support  the  Provisional 
(Government  in  all  democratic,  agrarian  and  Socialist  measures, 
until  the  Constituent  Assembly  of  all  Russia  should  meet  to 
establish  a  definite  (Government  and  to  formulate  a  clear  policy. 
In  short,  a  revolution  had  been  brought  about,  but  those  who 
were  mainly  responsible  for  its  success  had  not  thought  out  a 
clear  policy  for  the  intervening  period  between  the  downfall  of 
the  old  system  and^the  meeting  of  the  Constituent  Assembly. 
Moreover,  a  dispute  between  Kerensky  and  (General  Komiloff 
added  to  the  troubles  of  the  Provisional  Government  and 
weakened  its   position  seriously.     Tliis  weakness  was  further 


380  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

intensified  by  the  failure  of  the  Allies  to  declare  in  favour  of 
any  Government  accepted  by  the  Constituent  Assembly. 

But  all  these  preliminary  events  fade  into  insignificance,  and 
are  indeed  of  little  moment  at  the  present  time,  in  comparison 
with  what  followed. 

The  Bolsheviks,  as  already  observed,  had  declared  from  the 
first  against  any  participation  on  the  part  of  Russia  in  the  war 
against  Germany.  They  had  done  their  utmost,  throughout  the 
war,  to  breathe  disaffection  with  the  whole  policy  of  resistance 
to  German  aggression  into  both  soldiers  and  civilians.  They 
carried  on  secret  propaganda  in  this  sense  whenever  and  wher- 
ever they  could.  That,  by  so  doing,  they  strengthened  the 
traitors  in  the  Russian  General  Staff  and  in  the  Ministry,  and 
played  the  game  of  Germany  against  Russia  and  the  Allies,  is 
indisputable.  They  considered  that  it  would  be  better  for 
their  party,  for  Socialism,  for  Russia  and  for  the  world  at  large, 
that  the  German  armies  should  win  than  that  Tsardom  should 
be  fortified  by  victory.  This,  at  any  rate,  was  perfectly  clear 
and  logical.  It  was  not  the  view  of  the  majority  of  the  Marxist 
Social-Democratic  Party,  nor  of  the  Social-Revolutionary  Party 
of  the  peasants,  nor  of  the  general  body  of  democratic  Russians. 

But  those  who  are  inclined  to  stigmatise  the  conduct  of  the 
Bolsheviks  on  this  head  as  necessarily  a  betrayal  of  their  country 
may  be  reminded  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  Franco-German 
War  of  1870-1871  there  were  not  a  few  eminent  Frenchmen, 
whose  patriotism  has  never  been  questioned,  who,  while  ready 
to  defend  France,  nevertheless  entertained  the  hope  that 
Napoleon  III.  might  not  win.  To  the  Bolshevik  leaders  it  was 
more  important  to  overthrow  the  Tsar  and  his  system  than  to  de- 
feat Germany.  The  temporary  conquest  by  Germany  of  Russia 
might,  they  argued,  be  a  blessing  in  disguise.  Nor  should  it 
be  forgotten  that  the  Tsar's  ministers,  for  very  different  reasons 
from  those  which  affected  the  Bolsheviks,  were  quite  ready,  nay 
eager,  to  make  a  separate  peace  with  Germany  on  terms  which 
amounted  almost  to  unconditional  surrender.  Extremes  met. 
The  Revolution  of  1917  at  least  delayed  the  peace  of  reaction, 
and  gave  the  Allies  time  to  prepare  for  the  peace  of  Bolshevism 
and  pro-Germanism.  Thus  the  Bolshevik  policy,  as  formulated 
on  this  head  by  Lenin  and  his  comrades,  was  undoubtedly  pro- 
German  ;   but  pro-German  because,  as  they  thought,  German 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  381 

success  might  serve  the  cause  of  Marxism  applied  to  Russia  in 
its  most  doctrinaire,  premature  and  impossibilist  shape. 

When,  however,  in  the  midst  of  the  desperately  difficult  cir- 
cumstances arising  out  of  the  Revolution,  which  had  brought 
about  that  very  downfall  of  autocracy  for  which  the  Bolsheviks 
themselves  proclaimed  that  they  were  striving  in  their  own 
Machiavellian  anti-national  way — ^when,  at  this  the  most 
critical  moment,  perhaps,  in  all  the  long  history  of  Russia,  Lenin 
and  his  companions  were  hurried  from  Switzerland  to  Russia, 
through  Germany,  in  German  carriages,  provided  with  German 
money  and  in  constant  communication  with  the  German  Head- 
quarters Staff,  it  still  seems  astounding  that  they  were  not 
arrested  at  the  frontier  and  sent  back  whence  they  came.  How- 
ever honest  they  might  be  in  their  political  and  social  convictions, 
it  was  well  known,  to  the  men  temporarily  in  control  of  the 
Russian  Government,  that  the  Bolshevik  leaders  were  utterly 
unscrupulous,  and  that  they  would  stick  at  nothing,  first,  to 
arrange  an  immediate  peace  of  surrender  with  Germany,  and 
then  to  ensure  their  own  accession  to  power.  Nevertheless,  they 
were  given  free  entrance,  and  were  allowed  full  rights  of  agita- 
tion, propaganda  and  combination.  Even  when  their  methods 
were  proved  to  be  entirely  anarchical  and  subversive,  and  they 
were  consequently  arrested  and  imprisoned,  they  were  promptly 
released  to  carry  on  their  work. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  these  weak  and  hesitating 
tactics  gave  the  Bolsheviks,  ere  long,  the  opportunity  they  looked 
for  :  the  people  having  been  convinced  meanwhile  that  the  Pro- 
visional Government  was  afraid  of  its  not  numerous  but  deter- 
mined and  fanatical  opponents.  Thus  it  came  about  that,  at 
Petrograd  itself,  the  Bolsheviks  were  able  to  carry  out  a  suc- 
cessful coup  d'Stai,  before  the  Constituent  Assembly,  where  the 
Social  Revolutionaries  and  the  Marxist  Mensheviks  had  a  great 
majority,  could  set  to  work.  This  Constituent  Assembly, 
elected  by  full  popular  suffrage,  at  first  had  the  support  of  the 
Bolsheviks.  But  when  they  discovered  that  they  were  in  a 
hopeless  minority  in  the  Assembly,  and  that  the  representatives 
of  the  peasants  with  their  friends  would  be  in  complete  control, 
they  dissolved  the  "  Constituent  "  by  armed  force.  Armed  force 
was  also  used  to  secure  Bolshevik  domination  in  several  pro- 
vincial cities ;  and  in  more  than  one  instance  peaceful  political 


382  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

gatherings  of  elected  and  unarmed  deputies  were  dispersed 
by  volleys  from  machine  guns  and  rifles.  Throughout  these 
beginnings  of  the  Red  Terror,  the  Allies  stood  entirely  aside, 
refusing  either  to  acknowledge  the  Constituent  Assembly,  or 
to  help  its  supporters  to  help  themselves. 

At  this  time,  when  it  was  admitted  by  Lenin  himself  that  the 
Bolsheviks  had  no  greater  following  than  200,000  in  the  whole 
180,000,000  people  of  then  undivided  Russia,  this  infinitesimal 
minority,  having  captured  the  machine  of  Government,  declared 
the  "Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat";  though  the  Russian  pro- 
letariat itself  did  not  comprise  more  than  at  the  outside  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  population.  Of  that  ten  per  cent,  the  Bolsheviks 
were  one  per  cent.  The  Soviets,  or  local  popular  bodies  repre- 
sentative of  the  interests  of  the  mass  of  the  voters,  were  not,  as 
is  sometimes  assumed,  the  invention  of  the  Bolsheviks  at  all, 
but  were  set  on  foot,  in  some  cases  before,  and  generally  immedi- 
ately after,  the  Revolution.  The  Bolsheviks  have  taken  care  to 
prevent,  for  the  time  being,  any  difficulty  arising  with  these 
democratic  bodies  by  appointing  commissaries  with  dictatorial 
powers  in  each  district.  The  same  course,  in  a  different  form, 
has  been  pursued  with  the  Co-operative  Associations.  These 
most  useful  distributive  agencies,  which  had  made  great  way 
among  the  people  during  the  whole  of  the  troublous  period 
tlirough  which  Russia  had  been  passing,  were  placed  under  the 
direct  control  of  the  Bolshevist  State.  In  fact,  though  the 
methods  adopted  by  the  Bolsheviks  to  get  and  maintain  them- 
selves in  power  were  thoroughly  anarchist,  their  administration 
was  autocratic,  cruel  and  butcherly  to  the  last  degree. 

Of  this  little  account  is  taken  in  politics.  Atrocities  com- 
mitted by  the  successful,  no  matter  how  atrocious,  are  soon 
forgotten  and  forgiven  by  the  mildest  of  humanitarians  who 
have  political,  or  commercial,  advantages  to  gain  by  cultivating 
shortness  of  memory  in  such  matters.  That  the  Bolsheviks 
gained  their  position  and  keep  it  by  terrorism  of  the  most  ruth- 
less kind,  that  they  resorted  to  massacre  and  torture  of  their 
assimied  domestic  enemies,  is  quite  beyond  dispute.  Their 
recent  official  instructions  to  extirpate  the  Cossack  peasantry 
in  the  most  thorough  fashion  is  but  another  extension  of  their 
systematic  scheme  of  immolation,  not  only  of  the  bourgeoisie, 
but  of  democrats  and  Socialists  who  differ  from  the  policy  of 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  383 

Lenin,  Trotsky,  Zinovieff ,  Litvinoff  and  the  rest.     But,  if  they 
finally  win,  all  this  will  be  overlooked. 

It  is  most  unfortunate,  however,  that  the  Allied  Governments, 
and  the  British  Government  in  particular,  after  having  declared 
that  they  would  not  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Russia, 
when  the  surrender  to  Germany  at  Brest-Litovsk  had  been  con- 
summated, should  have  enabled  the  Bolsheviks  to  pose  as  the 
defenders  of  their  country  against  invasion  by  the  troops  of 
foreign  nations.  Their  success  against  the  Allied  forces,  as  well 
as  their  victories  over  Russian  armies,  largely  financed  and 
munitioned  by  the  Allies,  strengthened  their  position  enor- 
mously :  the  rather  that  the  territories  at  first  overrun  by  these 
domestic  foes  of  the  Bolsheviks  were  treated  by  the  reactionaries 
in  the  wake  of  Generals  Denikin,  Yudenitch  and  Admiral 
Koltchak  as  if  they  had  been  returned  to  Tsarist  rule. 

Thus,  within  a  few  months,  the  small  Bolshevik  minority 
gripped  control  of  Russian  centralised  authority,  and,  within 
two  years  and  a  half,  had  defeated  their  enemies  in  the  field,  and 
become  almost  undisputed  masters  of  Russia.  At  any  other 
time  such  a  remarkable  success  would  have  been  impossible. 
But  iiiinous  war,  a  rapid  revolution — not  carried  through  by  the 
Bolsheviks,  be  it  observed — the  breakdown  of  military  discipline, 
the  general  impoverishment  of  the  country,  the  strange  weak- 
ness of  the  Provisional  Government,  and  the  fanatical  determina- 
tion of  this  extreme  Marxist  section,  opposed  to  doubt  and  in- 
decision on  the  part  of  the  supporters  of  the  "  Constituent," 
gave  victory,  for  the  time  being,  to  those  who  knew  their  own 
minds  and  had  no  scruples,  against  those  who  hesitated  and 
were  afflicted  with  moral  sense. 

The  first  intention  of  Lenin,  Trotsky  and  the  other  Bolshevik 
leaders  was  to  seize  control,  apply  the  principles  of  scientific 
Socialism  to  Russia,  overawe  the  peasantry  and  their  (to  Lenin 
and  Company)  reactionary  views  about  private  ownership,  skip 
several  steps  in  the  slow  advance  of  social  evolution,  and  thus 
impose  their  doctrinaire  opinions,  not  only  upon  the  Russian 
people  but  upon  the  workers  of  all  the  nations.  It  seems  beyond 
question,  from  Lenin's  own  utterances,  that  he  believed,  for 
example,  whatever  sort  of  peace  was  arranged  with  Germany 
made  little  or  no  difference,  since  the  success  of  the  Social 
Revolution  in  Russia  upon  the  lines  laid  down  would  involve 


384  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Germany,  and  thereafter  the  whole  of  Europe,  in  a  similar 
revolution.  It  was  above  all  to  be  a  proletarian  revolution, 
though  the  proletaires  of  Russia  were  few  indeed  compared  to 
the  peasantry,  who  were  the  chief  obstacle  to  communistic 
reorganisation.  The  bourgeoisie  and  the  intellectuals  were  to 
be  destroyed,  or  reduced  to  impotence,  since  the  workers 
would  speedily  be  trained  to  perform  all  useful  functions  in 
the  Communist  Commonwealth. 

This,  of  course,  was  not  Marxism  according  to  Marx,  or,  in- 
deed, scientific  Socialism  in  any  sense,  as  all  the  ablest  Marxists 
in  the  world,  beginning  with  Plechanoff  on  the  spot,  at  once 
pointed  out.  Permanent  social  revolution  and  communist  re- 
construction can  only  be  successfully  achieved  when  the  bulk  of 
the  population  in  any  given  country  understands,  and  is  ready 
to  accept,  the  new  forms  which  have,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, developed  in  the  old  society.  The  marvellous  transition 
effected  by  Japan  in  forty  years  from  feudalism  to  capitalism, 
and  the  simultaneous  growth  of  Socialism  in  that  remarkable 
nation,  have  altered  the  opinion  of  most  Marxists  as  to  the 
rapidity  with  which,  under  favourable  circumstances,  great 
social  modifications  may  be  brought  about.  But  the  process  of 
historic  evolution,  slow  or  fast,  cannot  be  overleapt  by  the  most 
relentless  fanatic,  least  of  all  in  an  empire  such  as  that  of 
Russia. 

Lenin  was  of  this  opinion,  at  the  time  when  he  was  an  active 
member  of  the  combined  Social-Democratic  Party.  Experience 
has,  apparently,  forced  him  to  return  to  the  same  view.  For 
Bolshevism  in  control  has  been  unable  to  avoid  resorting  to 
capitalist  organisation  under  the  State  in  its  most  arbitrary 
shape  ;  the  idea  that  nationalisation  of  land — the  most  difficult 
problem  of  all — could  be  realised  in  a  hurry,  against  the  demand 
of  many  millions  of  peasants  for  private  possession  of  their 
holdings,  has  been  abandoned  ;  the  masters  of  Russia  are  eager 
to  develop  international  trade  and  commerce  on  profiteering 
lines;  and  they  have  actually  bargained  for  the  payment  of 
interest  on  old  foreign  loans,  a  project  which,  if  actually  carried 
out,  must  spell  ruin  to  Russian  agriculture.  The  Russian 
Communist  Revolution,  which  was,  and  is  still,  according  to  its 
leaders,  to  result  in  universal  upheaval,  has  been  itself  driven 
back  upon  the  old  economic  and  social  methods,  which  can 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  385 

only  be  beneficially  replaced  by  a  sane  development  of  Social 
Democracy,  such  as  can  be  observed  in  Czecho-Slovakia  and 
Sweden,  and  can  most  easily  and  peaceably  attain  its  ultimate 
goal  in  Great  Britain. 

There  has  been  a  natural  disposition,  as  already  said,  to  com- 
pare the  Russian  Revolution,  both  before  and  after  the  Bolshevik 
coup  at  the  end  of  1917,  to  the  great  French  Revolution ;  and 
a  superficial  resemblance  is  indisputable.  But  the  differences 
are  also  very  great.  The  most  striking  of  all,  perhaps,  is  the 
contrast  between  the  characters  and  careers  of  the  Russian  and 
the  French  exiles.  The  latter  consisted  almost  entirely  of  the 
old  feudal  nobiUty,  whose  greed,  cruelty,  incapacity  and  moral 
cowardice — "  Nous  Hions  des  Idches,^^  said  one  of  them — had 
been  largely  responsible  for  the  catastrophe.  They  were  the 
men  and  women  who  gathered  at  Coblenz  to  help  the  invasion 
of  France  by  German  and  Austrian  armies,  rejoicing  in  the  hope 
of  their  victory  over  Frenchmen,  and  bewailing  their  defeats 
when  the  Republican  forces  were  successful. 

Russian  exiles,  on  the  contrary,  are  chiefly  the  men  and 
women  who,  having  spent  the  best  years  of  their  life  in  fight- 
ing Tsardom  and  stirring  up  the  people  to  resist  intolerable 
oppression,  were  at  last  able,  at  the  price  of  long  imprisonment, 
and  sufferings,  to  realise  the  splendid  triumph  of  17th  March 
1917.  They  are  noble  patriots,  whom  Bolshevik  despotism  has 
in  its  turn  banished.  But,  maltreated  and  lucky  to  escape  with 
their  lives,  so  far  from  welcoming  the  attack  of  the  Allied  troops 
upon  Russia,  they  nearly  all  of  them  protested  against  this 
foreign  intervention  which,  if  successful,  would  have  personally 
benefited  them.  The  Bolsheviks  have  persecuted  and  frequently 
killed  those  heroes  and  heroines  but  for  whose  great  services 
they  never  could  have  feloniously  laid  hands  upon  the  Russian 
Republic.  These  victims  of  minority  despotism  still  believe 
that  the  democracy  of  Russia  will  assert  itself  and  realise  their 
dreams  of  social  emancipation  from  all  forms  of  tyranny  for  their 
countrymen.  One  thing  they  did  achieve,  in  spite  of  all  that 
has  occurred  since  :  they  rendered  the  return  of  the  Romanoffs 
and  the  system  they  represented  impossible. 

As  has  been  well  said  by  a  Russian  Socialist,^  Russia  has  pro- 
duced men  of  great  genius  and  profound  thinkers  who  have  had 

'  Landau-Aldanov. 
2  B 


386  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

much  influence  on  the  world  at  large ;  but  none  of  them  has 
affected  the  West  so  seriously  as  Lenin,  who  is  perhaps  not  even 
a  man  of  high  intelligence.  It  is  extremely  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  a  vast  population  came  to  be  dominated  by  a  small 
and  truculent  minority  of  middle-class  men,  who  utterly  failed 
to  carry  out  the  programme  of  social  reconstruction  they  meant 
to  impose  upon  their  countrymen,  and  who,  to  commence  with, 
had  no  great  reputation  among  the  people.  Only  when  we 
reflect  upon  the  results  of  ages  of  similar  tyranny  by  a  minority 
in  power,  the  absence  of  any  large  intelligent  and  administrative 
bourgeoisie,  and  upon  the  lack  of  cohesion  among  the  vast 
masses  of  illiterate  peasants — only  then  do  we  begin  to  compre- 
hend how  the  whole  astounding  phenomenon  has  been  brought 
about. 

But  the  character  of  the  Bolshevist  dictator,  Lenin,  who  has 
played  the  part  of  a  Communist  Ivan  the  Terrible  in  the  new 
pseudo-Marxist  Tsardom,  counted  for  much.  It  seems  to  be 
the  general  opinion  of  Russians  who  knew  him  well  that  Lenin 
has  no  great  intellectual  gifts,  and  that  he  attained  to  his 
dominant  position  by  pure  accident.  Yet,  being  neither  an 
orator,  a  powerful  writer,  a  great  organiser,  nor  a  statesman,  he 
secm*ed  pre-eminence  over  capable  and  jealous  rivals,  placed 
himself  in  absolute  authority  over  a  hundred  millions  of  people, 
and  gave  an  impetus  to  proletarian  revolt  throughout  the 
civilised  world.  That  is  no  small  achievement.  Granted  that 
circumstances  favoured  him  at  home,  and  that  the  great  and 
growing  hatred  of  profiteering  capitalism  aided  his  influence 
abroad,  there  is  more  here  by  a  great  deal  than  merely  an  ob- 
stinate and  ruthless  mediocrity.  If  the  times  produced  Lenin, 
Lenin  has  influenced  his  times.  The  day  has  gone  by  when 
Carlyle's  idea  of  the  great  man,  taking  hold  of  events  and  twist- 
ing them  to  accord  with  his  magnificent  far-seeing  poUcy,  can 
be  accepted.  The  vast  movements  of  world-wide  civilisation 
develop  themselves  under  conditions  which  take  much  less 
account  of  the  greatest  individuals.  But  the  individual  here 
and  there  does  count  in  human  affairs,  nevertheless,  and  it 
seems  worth  while  to  attempt  to  analyse  the  psychology  of  the 
Bolshevik  dictator. 

First  and  foremost,  Lenin  is  quite  unhuman  and  unethical  in 
all  his  actions.     Having  made  up  his  mind  that,  as  his  fellow- 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  387 

Russian,  Bakunin,  taught,  existing  society  ought  to  be  destroyed 
for  the  sake  of  humanity,  the  Uves  and  sufferings  of  men  and 
women  do  not  count  at  all  in  his  Juggernaut  advance  to  the 
desired  end  of  general  destruction.  The  bourgeoisie  must  be 
physically  as  well  as  intellectually  crushed,  and  all  who  support 
them  must  be  put  out  of  the  way.  This  not  only  in  Russia, 
where  the  members  of  the  detested  class  were  not  numerous, 
but  all  over  the  world.  The  drones  must  be  immolated  with 
entomological  completeness.  Hence  the  Bakunist  ethic : 
"  Whatever  helps  to  this  end  is  moral :  all  that  obstructs  it  is 
immoral."  And  of  the  morality  or  immorality  of  any  action, 
individual  or  collective,  Lenin  is  the  sole  judge.  He  stands 
outside  the  present  social  system  altogether.  But  this  view  of 
life,  once  accepted  and  carried  out  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
gives  the  person  imbued  with  it  immense  power.  Facts  may 
change  his  immediate  course,  but  not  his  ultimate  intention. 

Next,  Lenin  has  the  most  superb  confidence  in  himself. 
He  goes  to  work  to  set  things  right  in  accordance  with  certain 
misconceived  theories.  They  go  wrong,  as  it  was  inevitable 
they  should.  He  is  still  the  one  man  to  put  them  right !  That 
this  necessitates  the  entire  abandonment  of  his  previous  policy 
does  not  affect  him  in  the  least.  There  he  is,  and  there  he  will 
remain,  until  such  time  as,  having  by  other  methods  brought 
enough  of  mankind  round  to  his  opinion — a  minority  will  serve 
him  in  the  future  as  in  the  past — he  will  go  on  with  his  original 
programme  quite  regardless  of  outside  opinion.  Thus  he  con- 
sorts with  police  spies  whom  he  knows  to  be  police  spies,  and 
uses  them,  or  is  convinced  he  does  use  them.  He  becomes  an 
agent  of  the  German  Govermnent,  and  uses  it,  or  is  convinced 
he  uses  it.  He  employs  the  worst  of  the  agents  of  the  old  Black 
Hundreds,  and  uses  them  to  make  away  with  his  enemies.  He 
accepts  money  where  he  can^get  it,  when  weak  :  he  lays  hands 
upon  it,  or  prints  it,  when  strong.  Always  the  end  justifies  the 
means.  But  the  end  is  a  long  time  in  coming,  and  the  means 
have  to  be  varied. 

Then,  Lenin  is  pecuniarily  honest.  He  is  neither  luxurious, 
extravagant  nor  miserly.  His  fanaticism  calls  for  money. 
Money  must  be  had.  But  he  lives  penuriously  himself,  and  has 
a  contempt  for  those  who  do  not.  This,  too,  is  no  sham  parsi- 
mony, no  posmg  asceticism.     It  is  part  of  the  man  who,  in 


388  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

his  strange  way,  has  got  bigger  as  his  outlook  became  wider. 
MiUions  of  money,  Hke  millions  of  men,  are  for  him  mere  counters 
in  the  huge  game  he  is  playing  for  a  stake  that,  unless  all  history 
and  all  economics  are  to  be  read  backwards,  he  never  can  win. 
It  is  an  astonishing  personality  and  an  amazing  career. 

Lastly,  as  I  read  his  influence,  Lenin  possesses,  like  the 
scoundrel  Rasputin — to  whom  I  do  not  for  a  moment  compare 
him — some  inscrutable  hypnotic  power,  which  enables  him  to 
exercise  his  will  both  upon  men  of  higher  capacity  and  greater 
acquirements  than  himself,  and  upon  artisans  and  peasants 
who  are,  in  these  respects,  much  his  inferiors.  Individuals  and 
audiences  are  similarly  affected,  though  they  may  be  unable  to 
recall  much,  if  anything,  of  what  he  said.  This  power  of  influ- 
encing others  has  been  attributed  to  the  fact  that  Lenin  is 
always  playing  upon  the  almost  inexhaustible  gamut  of  human 
hatreds.  But  that  seems  an  insufficient  explanation.  Nor  will 
terror  or  bribery  give  the  clue  to  some  of  his  personal  conquests. 

There  are  two  aspects  of  Bolshevism  which  are  well  worth 
serious  consideration  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  evolution  of 
social  revolution  in  the  modern  world.  The  first  must  present 
this  effort  of  a  handful — for  200,000  is  not  even  a  large  handful 
as  compared  with  180,000,000 — of  furious  fanatics  to  endeavour 
to  impose  an  altogether  premature  social  system  upon  a  vast 
empire  as  wholly  harmful,  foredoomed  to  failure  and  certain  in 
the  long  run  to  help  reaction.  Such  action  is,  in  fact,  quite  in 
opposition  to  the  theories  of  historic  and  economic  develop- 
ment upon  which  the  Bolshevik  leaders  claimed  to  proceed. 
The  tyranny  of  a  minority  has  never  been  accepted  by  educated 
and  organised  Social  Democrats  in  any  part  of  Europe  as  calcu- 
lated to  aid  the  development  of  the  Co-operative  Commonwealth 
or  the  establishment  of  a  democratic  Socialist  Republic. 

The  crushing  down  of  representative  democratic  political  in- 
stitutions (such  as  the  Constituent  Assembly)  by  force  of  arms 
has  always  been  regarded  by  Socialists  as  injurious  to  genuine 
social  progress,  and  likely  to  throw  back  the  great  conscious 
working-class  movement  for  emancipation  from  slavery  in  all 
forms.  That  this  untimely  attempt  in  Russia,  accompanied  by 
the  most  fearful  injustice  and  monstrous  cruelty,  has  done  much 
to  hinder  orderly  transformation  in  other  countries  is  already 
manifest.    Had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  Social  Democracy, 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  389 

in  its  true  scientific  shape,  had  abeady  made  immense  progress 
outside  Russia,  the  mischief  done  would  have  been  far  greater. 
In  Russia  itself  only  by  a  miracle  can  the  Bolshevik  despotism, 
which  has  intensified  the  economic  chaos  already  existing,  be 
productive  of  good.  Agricultural  countries  as  a  rule  revive 
rapidly  from  external  or  internal  disturbance,  though  this  rule 
was  broken  by  the  long  drawn-out  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  and  the  ruinous  devastations  of  the  Ottoman  Turks  in  Asia 
and  Europe.  Yet  unless  the  economic  ineptitude  of  Bolshevism 
brings  about  its  own  speedy  overthrow,  more  than  a  generation 
may  elapse  before  Russia  recovers  from  the  pretended  "  Dicta- 
torship of  the  Proletariat "  imposed  by  a  group  of  middle-class 
autocrats. 

The  second  aspect  of  Bolshevism  is  that  which  has  regard  to 
its  influence  upon  Europe  and  civilised  countries  generally.     It 
cannot  be  disputed  that  the  apparent  success  of  the  Bolshevik 
leaders,  in  grasping  uncontrolled  authority  by  main  force,  has 
encouraged  many  ignorant,  ambitious  or  fanatical  persons  to 
imagine  that  a  coup  d'etat  of  the  Bolshevik-Napoleonic  descrip- 
tion might  enable  them  "  to  make  twelve  o'clock  at  eleven," 
regardless  of  the  real  stage  of  economic  development  or  the 
opinions  of  the  majority  of  the  population  whom  they  desired 
to  organise  in  a  Socialist  sense,  and  thus  put  them  in  the  position 
of  Lenin  and  Trotsky,  in  England,  France,  Germany  or  even  the 
United   States.     This  was  clearly  mischievous.     So  also  was 
the  sjnnpathy  and  even  pecuniary  help  given  by  the  Bolshevik 
Government,  so  far  as  possible,  to  those  who  shared,  or  were 
thought  to  share,  their  views  upon  an  immediate  and  simultane- 
ous social  revolution  by  \aolence  in  all  civilised  countries.   This 
policy  favoured  direct  action  and  was  opposed  to  political  and 
Parliamentary  action,  even  where  the  people  had  the  most  com- 
plete voting  power  at  their  command,  and  could  obtain  control 
over  the  National  Assembly  in  their  respective  nations.  In  short, 
it  strengthened  mere  emotional  upheaval  against  economic, 
reasoned  and  thoroughly  organised  social  revolt.     Thousands 
will  not  belie^  e  that  Bolshevik  dictatorship  now  means  for  the 
town  workers  strict  industrial  conscription,  twelve  homes'  work 
a  day,  for  seven  days  in  the  week,  under  pain  of  death ;   that 
wholesale  anarchy  exists  in  the  rural  districts  and  in  general 
transport ;   that  there  is  no  right  of  free  speech,  no  free  Press  ; 


390  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

and  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  trade  union  combination  resist- 
ing the  fiats  of  the  Bolshevik  masters.  Many  thousands  of  wage- 
earners  in  Western  Europe  still  credit  none  of  these  undoubted 
truths,  though  they  have  been  published  time  after  time  in 
official  Bolshevik  manifestos  and  Bolshevik  newspapers,  the 
latter  being  the  only  journals  allowed  to  exist. 

Yet  the  Bolshevist  control  of  Russia  has  taught  the  toilers 
of  other  countries  what  to  avoid  and  what  to  strive  for.  The 
Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat,  as  given  expression  to  by  an 
insignificant  minority  of  middle-class  doctrinaires  amid  a  back- 
ward population,  has  proved  inevitably  unsuccessful  and  ruin- 
ous. Where,  however,  economic  conditions  are  ripe  for  the 
transformation  of  a  capitalist  profiteering  society  into  a 
Co-operative  Commonwealth,  in  which  the  entire  community 
joins  in  giving  social  service  for  the  general  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth  for  the  common  use,  there  the  greatest 
revolution  of  all  time  may  peacefully  solve  the  problem  of  class 
antagonism,  to  the  infinite  advantage  of  the  whole  people. 


Note  1 

I  have  purposely  refrained,  in  the  text,  from  enlarging  upon 
the  methods  of  the  Bolshevik  Government  in  asserting  its 
authority.  But  the  following  official  decree  gives  a  fair  idea 
of  its  treatment  of  those  peasants  who,  for  any  cause,  resisted 
the  dictatorship  of  a  ridiculous  minority  of  the  population.  The 
Cossack  peasantry,  it  may  be  observed,  have  been  settled  on  the 
land  they  cultivate  for  very  many  centuries  : — 

Late  events  on  different  fronts  of  the  Cossack  regions,  our 
advance  into  the  depths  of  the  Cossack  settlements,  and  the 
increasing  resistance  of  the  Cossack  troops  oblige  us  to  give  the 
workers  of  our  Party  indications  as  to  the  character  of  their 
work  in  building  up  and  consolidating  the  Soviet  power  in  the 
above  regions. 

Taking  into  consideration  the  experience  of  a  year's  civil  war 
with  the  Cossacks,  it  is  necessary  to  acknowledge  as  the  only 
way  the  most  ruthless  struggle  with  the  whole  of  the  well-to-do 
Cossack  people  by  means  of  their  wholesale   extermination. 


BOLSHEVISM  AND  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  391 

Compromises  and  half-and-half  measures  are  inadmissible,  and 
therefore  it  is  necessary — 

(1)  To  institute  a  mass  terror  against  the  well-to-do  Cos- 

sacks and  peasants,  exterminating  them  wholesale, 
and  to  institute  a  ruthless  mass  terror  against  those 
Cossacks  in  general  who  have  any  direct  or  indirect 
part  in  the  struggle  against  the  Soviet  power. 

(2)  To   confiscate  their  corn  and  force  them  to   bring  all 

spare  stores  to  certain  fixed  points.  This  refers  to 
corn  and  to  all  other  agricultural  produce. 

(3)  To  take  all  measures  for  aiding  poor  immigrants,  organ- 

ising their  iiimiigration  where  possible. 

(4)  To  put  the  immigrants  on  a  footing  with  the  Cossacks 

in  the  agrarian  and  in  all  other  respects. 

(5)  To  institute  a  general  disarmament,  shooting  everyone 

who  may  be  found  in  possession  of  arms  after  the  date 
appointed  for  disarmament. 

(6)  To  issue  arms  to  rehable  men  only. 

(7)  To  keep  armed  detachments  in  all  Cossack  settlements 

imtil  complete  order  is  established. 

(8)  All  commissaries  appointed  to  the  several   settlements 

are  invited  to  exhibit  a  maximum  degree  of  firmness 
and  unwaveringly  to  fulfil  the  above  instructions. 

The  Central  Committee  has  passed  a  resolution  for  passing 
through  the  corresponding  Soviet  inscitutions  an  order  to  the 
Narcomzen  (People's  Commissary  for  Agricultiu*e)  to  elaborate 
with  speed  regulations  for  the  mass  transfer  of  the  poor  to  the 
lands  of  the  Cossacks. 

The  Central  Committee  of  the  Russian  Cominmiist 
Party. 

Cliief  of  the   Chancellery   of  the   Political    Section 
of  the  Southern  Front. 

(Signed)    Cherniak, 
Secretary  of  the  Political  Section  of  the  8th  Army. 


392  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Note  2 

The  best  books  on  Bolshevism  have  been  published  in  the  United 
States.  They  are  Bolshevism  and  The  Greatest  Failure  in  All  History, 
both  by  John  Spargo  (Harper  Brothers,  New  York),  also  Sovietism,  by 
English  Walling,  containing  a  very  full  collection  of  official  Bolshevik 
documents.  The  case  for  the  Bolshevik  Dictatorship  has  been  stated 
in  England  by  Eden  and  Cedar  Paul,  Creative  Revolution  :  a  Study  in 
Comjnunist  Ergatocrasy  (Allen  &  Unwin,  London),  and  in  R.  W. 
Postgate's  The  Bolshevik  Theory  (Grant  Richards  Ltd.,  London). 


CONCLUSION 

The  foregoing  survey  of  the  development  of  man  in  society,  and 
the  social  revolutions  which  have  accompanied  and  been  a  part 
of  his  growth,  shows,  brief  and  imperfect  as  it  is,  how  little 
conscious  appreciation  our  ancestors  had  of  their  own  sur- 
roundings, or  of  the  course  of  events  which  led  them  from  one 
stage  of  social  conditions  to  another.  They  drifted  on  the  tide 
of  human  evolution  from  they  cared  not  whence  to  they  knew 
not  whither.  Only  now,  at  last,  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  of  our  era,  which  has  itself  witnessed  the  most  tremen- 
dous war  of  all  the  ages,  do  we  see  dimly  what  went  before,  and 
are  able  to  understand  in  part  what  shall  come  after. 

From  the  primitive  and  rude,  and  then  the  more  refined,  com- 
munism of  ages  past,  which  endured  for  hundreds  of  thousands 
or  millions  of  years,  mankind  passed  through  long,  long  periods 
of  tribulation  and  sorrow.  Chattel  slavery,  serfdom,  wage 
slavery  each  in  turn  had  their  will  of  the  many,  who  have  been 
at  the  mercy,  which  has  ever  meant  the  cruelty,  of  the  few. 
Much  of  brutality,  much  of  bestiality,  much  of  horror  clung 
around  the  early  days  of  our  communal  forbears.  But,  com- 
pared with  the  evils  that  grew  out  of  nearly  all  forms  of  private 
property — the  individual  ownership  of  man  by  man,  and  the 
creation  of  wealth  for  the  minority  by  the  toil  of  the  masses 
— savages  certainly  fared  no  worse,  and  the  more  advanced 
communists  enjoyed  life  far,  far  better  than  their  successors  of 
modem  times. 

Civilisation  has  throughout  meant,  and  still  means,  the 
degradation  and  embrutement  of  vast  numbers  of  the  men  and 
women  who  exist  under  its  social  system.  In  the  most  highly 
civilised  countries,  in  the  greatest  and  richest  of  civilised  cities, 
crowds  of  people  pass  their  lives  in  wretchedness  and  misery, 
from  which  the  higher  barbarians  shrink  in  disgust.  So  little 
has  humanity  as  a  whole  thought  of  this,  so  natural  and  inevit- 
able has  the  squalor  and  suffering  of  millions  of  human  beings 
seemed  to  the  ablest  brains  of  each  successive  period  of  civilised 
393 


394  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

life,  that  it  has  all  been  taken  for  granted,  and  no  organised  col- 
lective effort  has  yet  been  made  to  attain  to  a  less  deplorable 
form  of  human  association.  Nor,  on  looking  back  over  the 
long  records  of  history,  does  it  appear  possible  that  the  inter- 
mediate stages  of  unconscious  social  evolution  could  ever  have 
been  overleaped.  Certainly,  the  forcible  revolts  of  outraged 
human  nature  against  intolerable  suffering  almost  invariably 
failed  to  secure  improved  conditions,  or,  where  accidental  success 
was  achieved,  it  meant  only  that  the  victors  placed  the  van- 
quished under  the  yoke  from  which  they  had  freed  themselves. 

We  of  our  day  are  inheriting  the  results  of  the  martyrdom  of 
man  to  the  forms  of  production  and  exchange,  developed  by 
slow  gradation  from  the  institutions  of  private  property,  and 
the  individual  ownership  of  goods  and  men  and  lands  by  the 
dominant  rich.  As  described  above,  all  the  marvellous  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  of  the  six  or  seven  generations  preced- 
ing our  own,  built  up  on  the  still  more  marvellous  achievements 
of  earlier  times,  have  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  wealthy,  who 
enjoy,  with  little  or  no  advantage  to  the  poor,  who  toil  and  suffer. 
With  all  this  morality  and  rehgion  have  nothing  to  do.  Against 
the  relentless  weight  of  the  Juggernaut  car  of  capitalist  progress 
ethics  are  powerless  and  religion  has  no  say.  Such  improve- 
ment as  is  attainable  comes  not  from  the  so-called  good  side  but 
from  the  bad  side  of  civilisation.  From  the  proletarians,  not 
from  the  plutocrats,  does  the  need  for  change  make  itself  felt. 
Modern  capitalism,  barely  two  hundred  years  old,  is  showing 
itself  to  be  not  only  injurious  to  the  vast  majority  of  individuals, 
but  a  definite  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  the  race.  Capitalism, 
also,  is  itself  destroying  the  competition  which,  not  more  than  a 
generation  ago,  was  its  economic  deity,  and  is  substituting,  for 
this  dethroned  fetish,  combination  and  monopoly,  impelled 
thereto  by  those  same  economic  forces  which  it  claims  to  control. 

But  this  change  of  method  is  accompanied  by  more  import- 
ant changes  still.  The  combinations  of  the  propertyless  wage- 
earners  are  becoming  every  day  more  and  more  complete  and 
more  formidable,  owing  to  the  same  economic  pressure.  Only 
by  the  suppression  of  individual  selfishness,  in  the  common 
interest  of  trade  and  of  class,  can  even  a  better  scale  of  wages 
be  secured,  against  the  combined  capitalists,  for  the  individual 
workers  themselves.    A  higher  standard  of  life  and  more  leisure 


CONCLUSION  395 

is  the  war-cry  on  the  one  side,  as  against  greater  production  and 
higher  profit  on  the  other.  The  class  war  in  the  field  of  economics 
and  sociology  becomes  more  strenuous  each  day.  But,  as  a 
result  of  this  manifest  antagonism,  the  State,  even  the  bourgeois 
State,  steps  forward  first  in  peace,  then  more  widely  in  war,  and 
again  more  widely  still  as  nations  strive  against  industrial 
monopoly  or  industrial  anarchy.  All  can  now  see  that  this  is 
inevitable,  however  vigorously  they  may  strive  to  postpone 
its  action — in  the  time  of  peace  restored. 

So  far  the  controlling  class  have  nowhere  displayed  any 
serious  intention  to  lead  in  the  transformation  which  precedes 
the  coming  period  :  nowhere,  also,  have  the  toilers  in  one  soUd 
class  put  themselves  forwara  as  the  capable  heirs  of  capitalism 
in  decay.  But,  in  all  the  advanced  nations  the  claims  of  the 
wage-earners,  set  forth  by  their  more  vigorous  and  intelligent 
champions,  reach  out  towards  the  new  social  dispensation, 
when  the  payment  of  wages  by  one  class  to  another  class — the 
last  of  the  slave  systems — shall  be  finally  swept  away. 

Tlie  problems  of  social  life  which  now,  manifestly,  lie  immedi- 
ately ahead  of  us,  cannot  possibly  be  solved  so  long  as  we  be- 
muse our  intelligence  by  bowing  down  before  the  fetishism  of 
money,  and  imagine  that  to  produce  articles  of  exchange  for 
profit  is  the  highest  end  and  aim  of  man  in  society.  Even  to-day 
the  machinery  of  international  exchange  is  breaking  down  in  its 
banking  form,  and  elaborate  barter  is  replacmg  the  methods 
which  were  thought  unchangeable.  What  co-operation  be- 
tween nations  is  doing  on  a  small  scale  to-day,  international 
understandmgs  for  the  collective  transfer  of  social  wealth  will 
accomplish  on  an  infinitely  greater  scale  to-morrow. 

In  the  transition  period,  when  monopolies,  trusts  and  com- 
bines are  being  absorbed  and  administered  by  collective  agency, 
in  the  form  of  nationalisation,  there  will  almost  certainly  be,  as 
indeed  is  already  apparent,  a  struggle  between  State  Bureau- 
cracy, miscalled  State  Socialism,  and  Social  Democracy,  which, 
in  its  developed  form,  is  Democratic  Co-operation  or  Commun- 
ism. The  former  may  involve  a  continuance  of  the  wage  system, 
and  an  extension  of  modified  class  management ;  the  latter 
means  the  entire  abolition  of  the  payment  of  money  wages,  and 
the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  by  all,  for  the  use  and 
benefit  of  all.     It  is  a  return  to  the  old  democratic  primitive 


396  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

Communism,  on  an  immensely  higher  plane,  due  to  the  almost 
infinitely  greater  powers  of  man  over  Nature.  This  difference 
between  State  Bureaucrats  and  Social  Democrats  was  acute 
even  in  the  days  of  the  Chartists  ;  it  will  now  have  to  be  settled 
in  the  political  and  social  field  before  any  definite  system  of 
Socialist  organisation  is  generally  accepted. 

In  the  past  I  thought  that  only  when  all,  or  nearly  all,  nations 
and  peoples  had  reached  the  comprehension  of  Social  Democracy, 
and  the  economic  development  of  each  had  embraced  the  Co- 
operative Commonwealth  of  all,  could  men  attain  to  that  higher 
communal  life  and  fraternal  interconmiunication  towards  which 
humanity,  formerly  unconsciously,  and  now,  in  part  at  least, 
consciously,  is  tending.  This  view  I  hold  no  longer.  On  the 
contrary,  I  believe  it  is  possible  that  one  people,  which  is  in  the 
latest  period  of  developed  capitalism,  can  so  transform  their 
national  life  as  to  be  able  to  attain  alone  to  that  brotherhood  of 
democratic  collectivism  or  Communism  which  shall  not  only 
enable  them  to  suffice  for  themselves,  but,  by  the  social 
happiness  secured  for  all  their  citizens,  shall  also  serve  to 
lift  others  to  the  same  level  more  rapidly  than  would  other- 
wise be  possible. 

It  is  no  mere  patriotic  regard  for  my  own  country,  whose 
terrible  misdeeds  at  home  and  abroad  have  often  horrified  the 
world,  which  leads  me  to  the  conviction  that  such  a  possibility 
of  independent  yet  ever  more  closely  inter-Socialist  develop- 
ment is  nearest  in  Great  Britain.  This  island,  although  it  has 
fallen  behind  both  the  United  States  and  Germany  in  the 
struggle  of  national  capitalist  competition,  is,  nevertheless, 
further  advanced  than  any  other  country  towards  the  desired 
reconstruction,  and  that,  too,  notwithstanding  the  lack  of  educa- 
tion of  the  people.  The  reason  is  that  here  the  working  popu- 
lation is  wholly  divorced  from  the  soil,  and  destitute  of  any 
valuable  personal  property.  Hence  there  are  no  real  economic 
antagonisms  between  the  workers  in  country  and  town,  nor 
between  various  grades  of  wage-earners,  when  once  they  under- 
stand that  only  by  joint  action  can  they  gain  complete  control 
of  the  forces  which  now  dominate  them  ;  and  thus  acquire 
collectively,  as  a  free  community  of  fellow-workers  for  the 
common  good,  that  general  ownership,  and  personal  emancipa- 
tion from  long,  compulsory  and  irksome  toil,  which  individually 


CONCLUSION  397 

they  could  never  obtain.  This  absence  of  internal  conflict 
between  the  British  proletarians,  which  they  themselves  are 
learning  to  take  advantage  of  more  definitely  every  day — as 
shown  by  the  closer  and  closer  relations  that  they  cultivate — 
is  accompanied  by  a  development  of  economic  forms,  and  an 
increase  of  State  interference,  leading  to  the  co-ordination  of 
competitive  anarchy  by  co-operatve  effort.  That  is  no  mere 
hypothesis  :  the  process  can  be  seen  going  on  all  round  us.  It 
can  only  be  arrested  by  armed  force  from  within,  or  armed 
force  from  without.  And  then  only  for  a  time.  Not  even  the 
most  terrific  force,  however  ruthlessly  apphed,  can  permanently 
prevent,  though  it  may  partially  retard,  the  birth  of  a  new 
society  which  has  been  created  in  the  womb  of  the  old. 

Wlien  the  workers  claim,  as  part  of  a  clear  political  programme, 
nationalisation  of  the  railways  and  transport  generally,  nation- 
alisation of  the  mines,  nationalisation  of  land,  nationalisation 
of  shipping,  nationalisation  of  this  or  that  necessary  of  life,  as 
they  are  demanding  all  this  in  England  at  present,  it  is  obvious 
that  they  are  striving  for  a  complete  social  revolution,  in  which 
ownership,  control  and  management  by  the  bourgeoisie  shall 
be  set  aside  in  favour  of  the  collective  ownership,  control  and 
management  by  the  whole  adult  population,  all  of  whom  shall 
contribute  their  quota  to  the  general  social  service.  It  is  im- 
possible to  stop  short  of  complete  socialisation — that  is  to  say, 
of  all  the  great  means  and  instruments  of  production  and  distri- 
bution. This  in  turn  must  inevitably  lead  on  to  the  equitable 
sharing  of  products  among  all  members  of  the  commimity. 
Every  step  will  be  in  the  direction  of  the  Co-operative  Conmion- 
wealth.  Since  there  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  creating  wealth 
far  in  excess  of  our  requirements,  by  the  scientific  organisation 
and  application  of  the  light  labour  of  all  to  the  satisfaction  of  our 
social  needs,  then  the  old  motto,  "  From  each  according  to 
ability,  to  each  according  to  needs,"  ceases  to  be  Utopian  and 
becomes  a  national  reahty. 

The  problems  of  society,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  daily  life  and 
sustenance,  will  then  no  longer  be  affected  in  any  way  by  money 
values,  but  Labour  will  be  devoted  to  this  or  that  branch  of 
production  in  proportion  to  the  desires  of  the  community. 
Work  that,  after  all  possible  amelioration,  remains  dangerous 
or  difficult  will  be  shared  by  all  of  the  community  who  are  fit. 


398  EVOLUTION  OF  REVOLUTION 

instead  of  being  relegated  to  a  class.  The  standard  of  life  for 
each  and  all  will  be  far  higher  than  anything  ever  yet  attained 
or  suggested.  The  best  possible  conditions  will  be  so  obviously 
to  the  general  benefit  that  the  elevation  of  the  level  of  society 
will  be  the  aim  of  each  individual  as  of  the  whole  community. 

Education  and  administration  of  the  highest  quality  will  be 
required  to  carry  out  to  the  full  this  establishment  of  real  social 
order.  But,  in  the  preliminary  stages,  it  is  quite  as  easy,  nay 
easier,  for  the  workers  to  make  use  of  the  best  brains  of  the 
country  to  serve  the  community,  as  it  is  for  the  capitalists  to 
command  them  for  their  own  private  gain.  The  question  of 
pay  or  remuneration  need  not  arise.  New  conceptions  of  the 
dignity  of  man  and  the  honour  of  social  service  will  inevitably 
take  the  place  of  sordid  ideas  of  personal  advantage.  Besides, 
if  men  and  women,  for  their  social  service,  obtain  all  that  they 
want  to  maintain  themselves  in  perfect  physical  and  mental 
health  and  activity — ^what  more  do  they  want  ? 

But,  it  may  be  argued,  if  we  admit  that  all  which  it  is  possible 
to  produce  within  the  limits  of  our  populous  island  is  produced, 
still  there  will  be  necessaries  and  luxuries  that  cannot  be  grown 
or  produced  within  its  limits.  Here  collective  in  place  of  in- 
dividual exchange  at  once  steps  in ;  and  it  is  certain  that  a  highly 
organised  society  could  and  would  produce  so  vast  a  surplus 
for  exchange  or  barter  that  a  higher  offer  could  be  made  for 
desirable  imports  than  any  non-Socialist  country  could  afford. 
The  waste  in  all  directions,  from  coal  onwards,  under  our  exist- 
ing system  is  so  great  that,  apart  from  infinitely  improved 
methods,  the  mere  cessation  of  this  bootless  extravagance  would 
vastly  increase  national  capacity  for  exchange. 

Of  the  new  ethic  inevitably  arising  out  of  a  scientific  and  en- 
lightened communism  it  is  not  necessary  to  write.  Nearly  all 
the  crimes  of  the  decalogue  are  property  crimes.  Remove  the 
incentive  and  the  crimes  will  vanish.  We  may  hope  that,  with 
the  perfection  of  all  social  and  material  conditions,  man's  almost 
ineradicable  tendency  to  torment  his  fellows  or  himself  will  at 
last  disappear. 

But  what  of  art,  of  letters,  of  beauty,  of  charm  of  existence 
at  every  stage  of  life  ?  Here  a  new  world  indeed  will  open  up 
before  humanity.  With  the  disappearance  of  overwork  and 
anxiety,  infinite  possibilities  of  the  development  of  the  higher 


CONCLUSION  399 

faculties  will  be  afforded  to  the  exceptionally  endowed,  while  all 
will  be  able  to  use  and  enjoy  every  capacity  they  possess. 
"  Leisure  and  pleasure  in  ample  measure  "  will  be  at  the  com- 
mand of  each  and  all.  And  leisure  where  there  is  no  more  toil 
means,  not  idleness,  but  an  alternation  of  agreeable  exercise  of 
mind  and  body  for  personal  and  communal  advantage.  Such 
freedom  of  the  individual,  trained  from  childhood  to  use  its 
powers  in  all  liberty  of  action  which  involves  no  harm  or  annoy- 
ance to  others,  with  the  examples  of  art  ever  at  hand  for 
encouragement  and  guidance,  will  harmonise  with  the  highest 
efforts  towards  the  reaUsation  of  perfection  in  every  department 
of  human  endeavour.  None  being  depressed  by  his  calling 
and  surroundings,  all  will  breathe  a  fresh  atmosphere  of 
exhilaration  where  the  ideal  fades  insensibly  into  the  real. 

For  such  dehght  in  Ufe  as  we  can  now  foresee  to  be  possibly 
attainable  for  all  has  never  yet  been  experienced,  even  by  the 
fortunate  few.  When  from  infancy  and  youth  to  fuU  develop- 
ment and  age  the  beauties  of  nature  and  the  pleasure  of  perfect 
health  can  be  entered  upon  and  enjoyed  mth  none  of  the  sordid 
and  degrading  drawbacks  due  to  the  dire  poverty  or  extreme 
riches  of  our  day  ;  when  work  is  but  the  useful  and  pleasing  ex- 
pression of  zeal  for  the  community  and  regard  for  the  individual, 
toil  and  exliaustion  being  wholly  unknown  ;  when,  throughout 
the  longer,  fuller  and  more  active  life  which  mankind  will  then 
be  heirs  to,  the  minds  of  all  will  be  more  completely  cultivated 
than  those  of  the  most  gifted  have  ever  yet  been ;  when  art 
naturally  rises  to  higher  and  ever  higher  pitch  of  exquisite 
achievement  due  to  a  keener  public  conception  of  beauty  in 
sculpture,  painting,  architecture,  decoration  than  the  best  of 
the  Greeks  themselves  could  realise ;  when  ethic  in  all  its 
branches  is  no  stiff  formula  devised  to  limit  the  natural  play 
of  human  desires  and  faculties  in  accordance  with  a  crude, 
ascetic  notion  of  personal  self-sacrifice,  but  is  a  well-founded  co- 
ordination of  physical,  mental  and  moral  pleasure,  virtually 
unrestrained  for  the  whole  of  himian  society  ;  when  the  whole 
world  is  fully,  freely  and  rapidly  open  to  the  travel  and  survey 
of  all  its  inhabitants — when  all  this  is  achieved,  as  achieved  it 
assuredly  will  be  within  a  calculable  period,  death  itself  will 
be  nothing  more  than  a  sigh  of  satisfied  content  at  the  close  of 
a  channmg  and  well-ordered  banquet  of  life. 


INDEX 


Agriculture  among  early  commun- 
istic tribes,  21  ;  decline  of  prosperity 
of,  in  Russia,  224  ;  deterioration  of, 
in  France,  224  ;  in  China,  163  ;  in 
Peru  under  Inca  rule,  143-145  ;  in 
England  during  eighteenth  century, 
262,  273 

Albert  elected  to  National  Assembly, 
252 

Albigenses,  massacre  of,  by  Catholics, 
184 

America,  condition  of,  prior  to  arrival 
of  Columbus,  142  ;  effect  of  dis- 
covery of,  on  European  trade,  206 

Amphictyonic  Council,  the,  358 

Architecture  in  Peru  under  the  Incas, 
146-147 

Aristotle  on  slavery.  65-67 ;  opposed 
to  usury,  132 

Asia  represented  at  International  Con- 
gress of  Amsterdam,  351 

Athens,  preponderance  of  slaves  over 
free  citizens  in,  6g  ;  revolution  in, 
130  ;   wealth  of.  125 

Attica.  130,  131 

Australia,  Aborigines  of,  19,  116 

Aztecs,  the,  22,  143 


B 


Babckuf,  226,  238,  240 ;  his  failure 
to  stem  reaction  after  1793,  244 

Babylon,  48,  72,  141 

Bacon,  Lord,  on  sheep-farming  in 
England,  201 

Bagaudae,    the,    rebellion    among,    93, 

95 
Bakunin,  Marx's  chief  opponent,  344 
Ball,  John,  195,  198 
Bax,  207,  234 

Bebel,  August,  345.  349,  351 
Beesley,  Prof.,  316 
Belgian  Labour  Party.  346 
Bellers,  John,  239,  267,  342,  361 
Bismarck,  Prince,  345 
Black  Death,  the,  195 
Black  Forest,  peasant  rising  in,  208 
Black  Prince,  the,  185,  193 
Blanc,  Louis,  251,  254-255 


Blanqui,  238,  243 

Bolsheviks,  appointment  of  commis- 
saries by,  382  ;  Constituent  Assembly 
dissolved  by,  381  ;  limited  following 
in  Russia,  382  ;  official  decree  re- 
lating to  Cossacks,  390  ;  pro-German 
poUcy  of,  380 

Bolshevism,  influence  upon  Europe  of, 
389 

Bourbon  monarchs  unable  to  restrain 
bourgeois  influence,  248  ;  monarchy, 
overthrow  of,  249 

Bourgeoisie,  aims  of,  in  French  Revolu- 
tion, 237  ;  rise  of,  in  England,  203, 
265 

Boxer  rising,  169 

Branting,  164 

Bridge-building  in  Peru,  150 

Bright,  John,  306 

Brussels  chosen  as  centre  for  Inter- 
national Bureau,  349 


Cade,  Jack,  rebellion  under,  198 

Caesar,  86 

Cale,  Guillaume  de,  187 

Cannibalism,  20,  39,  143,  148 

Capital,  gradual  ascendancy  of,  in 
England,  214 ;  employed  for  ex- 
traction of  profit,  conditions  essential 
to,  267-268 ;  industrial,  recent 
growth  of,  268  ;  nature  of,  in  Roman 
Repubhc,  37 ;  use  of,  in  Roman 
Empire,  99-100 

Carthage,  72,  81,  97,  158 ;  money 
wealth  of,  125,  134 

CathoUc  Church  among  largest  of 
feudal  landowners,  181 

CathoUcism,  revolt  against,  in  Ger- 
many, 207 

CathoUcs,  massacre  of  Albigenses  by, 
184 

Cattle  as  medium  for  barter  and  ex- 
change, 1 1 7- 1 19 

Charlemagne,  180 

Charles  I.  of  England,  213 

Charles  II.  of  England,  222 

Charles  X.  of  France,  failure  of.  to 
propitiate  bourgeoisie,  248 

Charles  the  Bad,  187-188 


2C 


40  r 


402 


INDEX 


Chartists,  257,  270 ;  and  child  labour, 
296 ;  attitude  towards  repeal  of 
Corn  Laws,  306  ;  demands  lor  free- 
dom of  Press  and  speech  by,  296  ; 
National  Convention  held  in  London 
by,  305  ;  theoretically  in  favour  of 
Free  Trade,  306 

Chaumette,  226,  238 

Chinese  armies,  defeat  of,  by  Japan,  166 

Chios,  island  of,  67,  84 

Chow  dynasty,  161 

Christian  attitude  towards  slavery, 
112-114;  church,  privileges  of,  in 
matters  of  serfdom,   176 

Christian  Socialists  in  Germany,  209 

Christianity,  unpopularity  of,  in  China, 
165 

Cicero,  86 

Civil  War  in  England,  213,  265 

Class  conflict,  continuity  of,  in  Western 
Europe,  17  ;  non-existent  in  real 
communal  period,  23 

Clootz,  Anacharsis,  226,  342 

Cobden,  306 

Coloni,  89,  114,  175 

Columbus,  142 

Commerce,  development  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 265 

Committee  of  Public  Safety,  244 

Commune  of  Paris,  the,  191,  234,  344 

Communism,  Imperial,  development 
of,  among  Peruvians,  147 ;  labour 
for  all  and  by  all,  the  foundation  of 
53  ;  not  contrary  to  human  nature, 
53  ;  social  equality  of  sexes  under, 
35  ;   the  rule  among  savages  23 

"  Communist    Manifesto,"     the,     256, 

305.  343 

Congress  at  The  Hague,  344 ;  in  Paris, 
1900,  348 ;  International  Socialist, 
London,  1896,  310,  327,  348 ;  of 
Amsterdam,  351  ;  of  Erfurt,  345 ; 
of  Lausanne,  356 ;  of  League  of 
Nations  at  Washington,  361  ;  Peace, 
of  Paris,  362  ;    Trade  Union,  341 

Coq,  Robert  le,  association  of,  with 
Marcel,  188-190 

Corn  Laws,  enactment  of,  in  1815,  281 

Cromwell,  brutality  and  tyranny  of, 
220 ;  establishment  of  standing 
army  by,  214;  nature  of  fanaticism 
of,  219 

Currency,  debasement  of,  in  Paris, 
188  ;  in  England  in  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  202 


D 


Danton,  226 

Darwin's  Origin  0/  Species,  284 

Delos,  slave  market  of,  102 


"  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat " 
proved  unsuccessful  and  ruinous  in 
Russia,  390 

Diocletian,  92,  93  ;  his  Law  of 
Maximum,   103 

Diodorus  Siculus  on  Egyptian  gold- 
mining,  126-129,  275 

"  Direct  Action,"  policy  of,  defined, 
337-338 

Drogheda,  massacre  at,  by  Cromwell,  220 

Drummond,  Hon.  Sir  Eric.  263 

Duma,  dissolution  of,  375  ;  election 
of  the  first,  372,  374 


East  India  Company,  269 

Egypt,  81.  97  ;  gold-mining  in,  126-129  ', 
slave  labour  in  mines  of,  64 

Elizabeth.  Queen,  358-360 

Elizabethan  age,  203 

Engels,  no,  270,  316,  343;  attacks 
on  Prance  by.  346 ;  pro-German 
attitude  of,  346 ;  publication  of 
"  Communist  Manifesto  "  by,  256 

England,  labourers  of,  reduced  to 
destitution,  203  ;  social  condition 
of,  in  August  1914,  330  ;  supremacy 
of,  in  industry  and  commerce,  274 

Europe,  Central,  feudal  conditions  in, 
during  sixteenth  century,  204-205 


FABiAN   SOCIKTY,   the,    317 

Factory  Acts,  298 

Farming,  arable,  replaced  by  pastur- 
age in  England,  200 

Feudal  commission  appointed  by 
National  Assembly,  228 

Feudal  dues,  laws  relating  to,  passed  by 
National  Assembly  in  France,  227 

Feudalism  abolished  finally  in  France, 
228;  causes  of  growth  of,  in  Europe, 
178  ;  condition  of,  in  sixteenth 
century,  204-205  ;  first  symptoms 
of  break-up  in  England  of,  199  j 
gradual  establishment  of,  in,  173, 
174  ;  in  China,  160  ;  survival  of, 
among  modern  German  Junkers, 
206  ;  transition  from,  to  capitalism 
in  Japan,  384  ;  duration  of,  in 
Western  Europe,   326 

Fison,  Rev.  Lorimer,  31 

Flocon,  252 

Fourier,  238,  342 

Fox,  306 

France,  conditions  of  taxation  in,  229  ; 
desolated  by  bad  harvests,  224  ;  in- 
crease of  national  debt  of,  224  ; 
politically  in  advance  of  Britain,  287 


INDEX 


408 


Freedom  of  speech  demanded  by  Chart- 
ists, 296  ;  restricted  by  Charles  X. 
in  France,  248 

Free  Trade,  attitude  of  Chartists  to- 
wards, 306 ;  views  of  Fox,  Bright 
and  Cobden  on,  306 


Gaismayer,  209 

Game  Laws,  328,  335 

Gapon,  Father,  371-372 

Germany,  causes  of  failure  of  peasant 
war  in,  212  ;  consohdation  of  Social- 
Democratic  Party  in,  345  ;  division 
among  Socialist  Party  in,  345  ;  effect 
of  continual  success  of  Socialism  in, 
349  ;  formulation  of  twelve  articles  by 
peasants  of,  209  ;   war  aims  of,  353 

Gcyer,  Knight  Florian,  210 

Girondins,  the,  226,  235 

Gold,  appearance  of,  as  medium  of  ex- 
change, 119 

Gold-mining  in  Egypt,  126,  129 ;  in 
Peru,  129,  149 

Gordon,  General,  165 

Goths,  incursions  of,  on  Rome,  no, 
171 

Greece,  cruelty  to  slaves  in,  69,  71  ; 
development  of  chattel  slavery  in, 
63  ;    slave  labour  in  mines  of,  64 

Gracchi,  the,  political  activites  of,  78,  79 

Gracchus,  78,  86 


H 


Habeas  CoRptJS  Act,  suspension  of,  in 
1817,  281 

Hadrian,  106 ;  his  enactments  in 
favour  of  the  coloni,  114 

Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  216,  217 

Hannibal,  64,  76 

Hanseatic  League,  the,  206 

Henry  IV.  of  Navarre  and  scheme  for  a 
League  of  Nations,  358-360 

Henry  VH.  of  England,  legislation  re- 
garding land  and  husbandry  intro- 
duced by,  201 

Herve,  Gustave,  352 

Hipland,  209 

Historical  Basis  of  SociaHsnt,  274 

Huang-Su,  166-169 

Huns,  incursions  of,  on  Rome,  no 


India,  British  Empire  in,  269 

Individualism  the  rule  among  civihsed 
peoples,  23 

International  Bureau,  choice  of  Brussels 
as  centre  of,  349 

International,  the.  Congress  of,  in 
London,  310,  327,  348  ;  first  Con- 
gress of,  in  Geneva,  257  ;  formation 
of,  in  London,  1854,  287,  343  ;  full 
Congress  of,  in  Paris,  1900,  348  ;  re- 
moval of  "  centre  "  of,  to  U.S.A., 
344  ;  Second,  356  ;  sepeirate  Con- 
gresses of,  held  simultaneously,  347 

International  Working  Men's  Associa- 
tion, 316 

Intertribal  hostility  during  communal 
period,  23,  30 

Invasions  of  China  by  Tartars,  161  ; 
of  Rome  by  barbarians,  no,  171  ; 
of  France  by  England,  193 

Inventions  among  primitive  tribes,  24- 
26,  37  ;   in  England,  272,  312 

Ireton,  General,  221 

Irrigation,  as  practised  by  primitive 
tribes,  29  ;    system  of,  in  Peru,  144 


Jacquerie  rising,  causes  of,  185-186 

Japan,  aggressive  policy  of,  with  re- 
gard to  China,  169 

Jaurds,  245,  354 

Jewish  literature,  effect  on  revolution- 
ary movements  of,  207 

Jews,  slavery  among,  60  ;  pogroms  of, 
in  Russia,  369 

Junkers  of  Germany,  survival  of  feudal- 
ism among,  206 

Justice  established  in  1884,  317 


K 


Kant,  361 

Katayama,  351 

Kent,  men  of,  in  Jack  Cade's  rebellion, 

198 
Kerensky,  379 
Ket,  202 

Koltchak,  Admiral,  383 
Komiloff,  General,  379 


Incas,  rule  of,  in  Peru,  143  ;  policy  of 
Imperial  communism  and  conquest, 
147  ;  benefits  derived  by  the  people 
from  communism  of,  153-155 

Independent  Labour  Party,  the,  317 


Labourers,  condition  of,  in  England 
in  seventeenth  century,  217 

Labour  members'  lack  of  vigour  in 
Parliament,  337 


404 


INDEX 


Labour  Party,  attitude  of,  towards 
aggressive  policy  of  Germany,  329; 
formation  of,  327  ;  inadequate  repre- 
sentation of,  in  House  of  Commons, 
337  ;    Independent,  the,  327 

Lafayette,  234 

Lamartine,  252 

Lancashire,  305,  310-31 1  ;  Arthur 
Young  on  condition  of  roads  in,  264  ; 
industrial  unrest  in,  298 

Land,  nationalisation  of,  inevitable, 
325  ;  ownership  of,  by  capitaUst 
farmers  in  England,  264 ;  produc- 
tion, difficulties   of  socialisation  of, 

325 

Landowners,  absenteeism  among,  in 
France,  223  ;  ill  treatment  of  serfs 
by.  177  ;  tyranny  of,  in  Central 
Europe,  204 

L'Ange,  227,  238 

Laon,  Bishop  of,  189 

Lassalle,  345 

League  of  Nations,  first  Congress  of,  at 
Washington,  361  ;  Imperiahst  and 
CapitaUst  nature  of,  363  ;  prelimin- 
ary conference  of,  at  Philadelphia, 
361  ;  scheme  for  a,  conceived  by 
Henry  IV.  of  Navarre,  358-360 

Lenin,  351,  381  ;  admirer  and  friend 
of  Plechanoff,  372 ;  character  and 
ideals  of,  386-388 ;  opposed  to  com- 
promise, 373  ;  reasons  of,  for  pro- 
German  policy,  380 

Levellers,  the,  221-222 

Liberals,  the,  dangerous  enemies  of 
Labour  Party,  328 

"  Liberty,  EquaUty,  Fraternity,"  as 
understood  by  bourgeois  instigators 
of  French  Revolution,  237 

Liebnecht,  345,  349,  351 

Lilbume,  John,  trial  of,  by  Cromwell's 
judges,  221 

LitvinofiE,  383 

London,  population  of,  in  1750,  262  ; 
revolt  in,  after  enactment  of  Com 
Laws,  1815,  281 

Louis  XVI.  dismisses  Turgot,  233 

Louis  Philippe,  249  ;  his  r61e  of  the 
Bourgeois  King,  249  ;  personal  in- 
corruptibility of,  250 

Luddites,  the,  280 

Luther,  Martin,  211 


M 


Mably,  Abbe,  231,  238 

Machinery,  industrial,    destruction   of, 

by  workers,  279-280 
Maillart,  John,  191 
"  Maisons  du  Peuple  "  in  Belgium,  346 


Malesherbes,  232 

MaUnovsky,  373 

Marat,  234,  238 

Marcel.  Etienne,  223;  ideals  and 
ambitions  of,  190  ;  intrigues  with 
Charles  the  Bad,  191  ;  killed  by 
John  Maillart,  191 

Marie,  252 

Marie  Antoinette,  232 

Marius,  136 

Marxian  theories  accepted  as  a  whole 
by  many  Socialists,  257 

Marxists,  antagonism  of,  towards 
Possibilists,   346 

Marx,  Karl,  no,  213,  257,  267,  316, 
343,  384 ;  antagonism  of,  towards 
Bakunin,  344  ;  attacks  on  France 
by,  346  ;  his  Das  Kapital,  284  ;  pro- 
German  attitude  of,  346  ;  publica- 
tion of  "  Communist  Manifesto  "  by, 
256 

Masaryk,  President,  364 

Masai  tribes  of  Africa,  22 

Mazarin,  219,  223 

Mazzini,  316,  343,  361 

Meaux,  scene  of  turning-point  of 
Jacquerie  rising,  186 

Mexico,  48,  143 

Middle-class,  political  power  of,  in 
England,  265 

Mihliukoff,  377 

Mining,  Imperial  decrees  against,  in 
China,  163  ;  growth  of,  in  England, 
263 

Ministry  of  Food  established,  335 

Mithridates,  78,  81,  136 

Mohammed,  289 

Monarchy,  re-estabUshed  in  France 
after  overthrow  of  Napoleon  I.,  248  ; 
Bourbon,  overthrow  of,  249 

Monasteries,  overthrow  of,  in  England, 
202,  264 

Moratorium  granted  in  favour  of  banks 
in  1914,  332 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  on  sheep-farming 
in  England,  200 

Morelly,  238 ;  sociological  works  of, 
241  ;  summary  of  communistic 
ideals  of,  242-243 

Morgan's  Ancient  Society,  284 ;  investi- 
gation among  savages,  30,  31  ;  on 
growth  of  gentile  institutions  in 
Europe,  47 

Mulhausen,  210 

Munzer,  209 


N 


National  Assembly,  the,  and  feudal- 
ism, 227-228 ;  Albert  elected  to,  252  ; 
calling  together  of,  223 


INDEX 


405 


National  Convention  held  by  Chartists, 

305 
Nationalisation,  in  abeyance  from  1846, 

307  ;    of  land  inevitable,  325 
Napoleon  I.,  248 
Napoleon  III.,  249 
Nicholas  II.  of  Russia,  369,  372,  375, 

377 
Nobility  in  France,  causes  of  overthrow 

of,  232 
Norman  conquest  of  England,  ruinous 

effect  of,  on  France,  193 
Noske,  354 


O 

Oastler,  275 

O'Brien,  Bronterre,  297,  303,  307 

O'Connor,  Feargus,  297,  299 

Old  Age  Pensions  Bill,  328 

Owen,  Robert,  238,  243,  254,  275,  342, 

361  ;   theories  of,  derided  by  Engels, 

270 


Paris,  Bishopric  of,  182 

Paris,  Commune  of,  23,  191,  344  ;  rising 
under  Marcel  associated  with  Jac- 
querie, 188 

Parish  settlement,  drawbacks  of 
system  of,  in  England,  263 

Patagonia,  tribes  of,  19 

Peasants,  French,  conservatism  of, 
237  ;  German,  formulation  of  the 
twelve  articles  by,  209 

Penn,  William,  361 

Pfeiffer,  209-210 

Plato  on  slavery,  65-67 

Plechanoff,  George,  290,  351,  370,  372 

Poitiers,  battle  of,  185 

Police,  first  organisation  of,  49 

Polynesia,  22,  31 

Poor  Law,  282,  300 

Population  of  England  and  Wales,  262, 

273 

Portsmouth,  Peace  of,  371 

Press,  freedom  of,  demanded  by  Chart- 
ists, 296  ;  restricted  by  Charles  X., 
248 

Private  property,  creation  of  antagon- 
istic classes  by  institution  of,  1 7 ; 
development  of,  59 ;  how  regarded 
by  leaders  of  French  Revolution, 
226 ;  non-existent  to  the  gentile 
tribesman,  37 

Production,  land,  difficulties  of  social- 
isation of,  325  ;   for  profit,  63,  265 

Profiteering  class,  growth  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 214 

Protestantism,  rise  of,  in  Germany,  207 


R 

Rasputin,  377 

Reaction,  period  of,  in  France,  1815- 
1848,  251 

Reform  Bill,  passing  of,  282 

Richard  II.,  cruelty  of,  towards  Wat 
Tyler's  followers,  197 

Richelieu,  219,  223 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  introduction  of 
Bill  for  universal  suffrage  by,  280 

Roads,  condition  of,  in  England,  eigh- 
teenth century,  264 

Roman  Republic,  bankruptcy  of,  136 

Romanoff  dynasty,  downfall  of,  378 

Rome,  development  of  chattel  slavery 
in,  63  ;  acquisition  of  ill-gotten 
wealth  by,  81  ;  the  usurer  of  usurers, 
137  ;  disproportion  in  numbers  be- 
tween slaves  and  citizens  in,  82  ; 
money  power  of,  134 ;  war,  the 
"  great  industry  "  of,   97 

Rothenburg,  210 

Rousseau,  238,  366 

Roux,  Le,  227,  238 

Russo-Japanese  War,  351,  370 


Sadler,  275 

St  Simon,  238,  266,  342,  361 

Savages,  Morgan's  investigations 
among,  30,  31 

Saxony,  Duke  of,  212 

Semitic  tribes,  22 

Serfdom,  continuance  of,  in  Germany 
until  1811,  206  ;  disappearance  of, 
in  England,  198  ;  gradual  establish- 
ment of.  III 

Servy,  349 

Sheep-farming,  introduction  of,  in 
England,  200 

Sicily,  97 

Slavery,  agricultural,  57-59  ;  Aristotle 
on,  65-67  ;  chattel,  failure  of,  due  to 
economic  causes,  114  ;  essential  to 
development  of  Mediterranean  civi- 
hsation,  61  ;  familial,  59 ;  Greek 
conception  of,  65  ;  in  Egypt,  61  ; 
in  Spain,  64  ;  more  cruel  than  the 
customs  it  displaced,  40  ;  Negro,  in 
Southern  States  of  America,  113; 
Roman,  economic  causes  of  decay  of, 
109  ;  the  backbone  of  Roman  Re- 
public, 79 ;  the  negation  of  social 
equality,  54  ;    tribal,  40,  43,  59 

Slaves,  apathy  of,  in  Greece,  71  ;  in- 
surrection of,  under  Spartacus,  87- 
89 ;  manumission  of,  on  economic 
grounds,  104  ;  manumitted  in  Judea 
after  seven  years'  service,  60  ;  pro- 
portion of,  in  Sparta,  68  ;  risings  of, 
in  Greece,  Chios  and  Tyre,  84 


406 


INDEX 


Slums,  spread  of,  in  great  cities,  311 
Smith,  Adam,  views  of,  on  division  of 

labour,  271  ;    his  Wealth  of  Nations, 

266 
Smith,  Adolphe,  347 
Smithsonian  Institute,  31 
Social-Democratic  Federation,  the,  316, 

326 
Social-Democratic  Party  in  Germany, 

345,    349,  354  ;    founded  by  Plech- 

anoflf  in  Russia,  370 
Social  Democrats,  principles  advocated 

by,  since  1880,  319 
Socialist  League,  the,  317 
Soviets   not  originated   by  Bolsheviks, 

382 
Spartacus,  84,  88-89,  94 
State  control  of  industries,  adoption  of, 

in    Britain  during   Great  War,   331- 

333 
Stephens,  297-298 
Strike  of  weavers,  1756,  272 
Stuart,  Sir  James,  271 
Stiirmer,  377 
Sulla,  77 
Sully,  358 


Tai-ping  Rebellion,  164-165 

Tartar  invasion  of  China,  161 

Taxation  excessive  in  Russia,  370  ; 
exemption  of  nobility  and  clergy 
from,  in  France,  224  ;  in  France  dur- 
ing eighteenth  century,  229-230 

Thiers,  M.,  258,  259 

Thirty  Years'  War,  212 

Trade  Unionism  in  its  infancy,  278 

Trade  Unionists,  activities  of,  divorced 
from  politics,  315  ;  admitted  to 
Coalition  administration,  336;  un- 
able to  accept  Marxian  theories,  316 

Trade  Unions,  growth  of  membership 
of,  during  recent  years,  336 ;  sur- 
render by  Government  to  claims  of, 
during  Great  War,  336 

Tribes,  communal,  survival  of,  to  pre- 
sent day,  23  ;  primitive,  cannibal- 
ism among,  20,  23  ;  hospitality  and 
courtesy  of,  28  ;  inventive  ability  of, 
24-26 ;  sexual  and  marriage  rela- 
tions among,  31-33 ;  skill  of,  in 
irrigation,  29 

Trotsky,  351,  374,  383 

Tsin  dynasty,  161 

Tudors,  change  in  conditions  in  Eng- 
land during  dynasty  of ,  2 1 5  ;  nature 
of  rule  of,  219 

Turgot,  232,  233 


Tyler,  Wat,  196-197,  204 
Tyre,     125,    1 31-132.    158 ;     rising    of 
slaves  in,  84 


U 


Unemployment  in  seventeenth-cen- 
tury England,  217 

Usury  deplored  by  Aristotle,  132  ;  in 
Rome,  135-137  ;  laws  relating  to, 
130,  140,  216 


Vagabondage  in  England  increased 
by  overthrow  of  monasteries,  202 

Vandervelde,  349 

Vega,  Garcilasso  da,  Inca  of  Peru,  144 

Vendee  La,  224,  235 

Voltaire  on  dismissal  of  Turgot  and 
resignation  of  Malesherbes,  233 


W 


Wages,  legislation  for  fixing  rates  of, 
272 

Wallon,  work  on  slavery  by,  59 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  232 

War,  Civil,  in  England,  265  ;  Great, 
the,  353  ;  Russo-Japanese,  251  ; 
Napoleonic,  274,  278,  301 ;  Wars  of 
the  Roses,  198  ;    Thirty  Years,  212 

Wealth  of  Nafiovs,  publication  of,  266 

Weavers,  opposed  to  introduction  of 
machinery,  279  ;  strike  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 272 

Weigand,  209 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  305 

Wentworth,  214 

Wexford,  massacre  at,  by  Cromwell, 
220 

William  the  Norman,  193 

Wilson,  President,  358  ;  his  speeches 
in  connection  with  League  of 
Nations,  361 


Yeomanry,  growth  of,  in  England,  194 
Young,  Arthur,  264 
Yudenitch,  General,  383 


Zemstvos,  growth  of,  in  Russia,  369 
Zinovieff,  274,  383 
Zulus,  22 


ll: 


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